Parents, school staff want SACE Research Project scrapped, survey finds

PARENTS want the SACE Research Project dumped while non-parents are more likely than parents to back unleashing drug dogs on students, a new survey has found. Where do you stand?

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PARENTS and school staff want the controversial SACE Research Project scrapped, a survey by a key parent group has found.

Most also oppose a union push for all teachers of students with disabilities to receive an extra allowance.

The SA Association of State School Organisations survey attracted 1100 responses.

Results show 58 per cent support for scrapping the compulsory Research Project, in which students delve into a topic of their choice in depth in four stages - planning, development, research outcome and evaluation.

There was even greater backing from principals and teachers for the move.

The Government has blamed the project for numbers of students doing foreign languages in Year 12 halving under Labor, as it reduces the number of other subjects university aspirants pursue from five to four.

But Education Minister John Gardner, pictured, said the Government was sticking to its terms of reference for a SACE review, which will look at making the project optional and its focus more entrepreneurial, not scrapping it.

Just 42 per cent of respondents, and even fewer principals, backed the Australian Education Union’s legal fight to win a $1219 allowance for any teacher with one or more students with a verified disability in their class.

The union has argued teachers are not being recognised for the difficulty and increased workload associated with special needs students in mainstream classes.

AEU state vice-president Dash Taylor Johnson said more parents would be supportive if they appreciated the challenges teachers faced.

“It’s a paltry sum on an individual basis.

The money itself is not what it’s about. It’s about that broader recognition,” he said.

The respondents included 145 teachers and 90 principals, and 84 per cent were parents. Some parents also were school workers.

The survey found strong support for the State Government’s plan for more use of drug sniffer dogs in schools at 62 per cent, though parents were significantly less supportive than non-parents.

The most decisive result was on the SA Secondary Principals Association’s bid for all starting teachers to be employed on a provisional basis, so schools could get rid of them if they didn’t meet national standards within a certain time frame. There was almost 80 per cent support.

Fewer than a third agreed with fining parents of bullies, which has been proposed in at least two US states.