'Segregation in school' claims denied

ALL education sectors in WA have denied claims in a human rights report that Aboriginal children in the Kalgoorlie region were segregated.

Equal opportunity and human rights commissioner Helen Szoke

ALL education sectors in Western Australia have denied claims in a human rights report that Aboriginal children in the Kalgoorlie region were placed in a segregated class and banned from gathering in groups of more than three.

The claims were contained in a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report designed to pave the way towards a new national anti-racism strategy.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Helen Szoke yesterday stood by the report, despite being unable to corroborate the claims, which were not the subject of a race complaint.

"These comments were made at a public meeting and to my knowledge have not been pursued via a formal complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission," Dr Szoke said.

"For this reason, the commission has reported them as statements made during the public consultation process.

"Individuals who feel they have experienced racism or discrimination often do not wish to pursue a formal complaint, therefore when researching these issues it is important to provide a number of avenues by which people's experiences can be expressed.

"The purpose of the consultation process was to understand what individuals and communities around Australia feel are the priority areas for addressing racism to inform the development of the National Anti-Racism Strategy."

Western Australia's Education Department director Peter Titmanis, who heads the section responsible for Aboriginal education, has called the claims "bizarre".

He said the department had not heard of any Aboriginal students being deliberately segregated and he found it extremely unlikely this would occur at a public school.

The head of Catholic Education in Western Australia, Ron Dullard, said yesterday there was no segregation in Catholic schools and while it was possible to imagine classes being streamed to focus on literacy or numeracy needs, "I can't believe in this day and age any classes would be racially segregated".

He said the three Catholic schools in the Kalgoorlie area had only 13, 12 and 10 Aboriginal students and would welcome more.

Independent Schools of WA executive director Valerie Gould said: "I have never heard of this. Two of our three schools in the Kalgoorlie area are 100 per cent Aboriginal."

The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia said it was not aware of any complaints about the treatment of Aboriginal children in Kalgoorlie schools.

Kylie Catto, president of the WA Council of State School Organisations said she had never heard of it.

Staff at two Kalgoorlie schools, Goldfields Baptist College and John Paul College, said they had not heard of any instances of segregation in the region.

The independent state MP for Kalgoorlie, John Bowler, said he had not heard of it, but speculated that if such action had been taken, it could have been applied to a specific group of troublesome children.

"I think what it is, there's been some massive behavioural problems and for the sake of the kids, I think the principal said this group, when they get in a big group, they terrorise the other kids," he said.