Safe schools goes to the pub

Safe schools goes to the pub
Image: Cast of the 2014 Australian Tour of Rocky Horror Picture Show with Richard O'Brien. Photo: Shane O'Connor

BY JORDAN FERMANIS

The Safe Schools Coalition was launched by the Victorian government in 2010. The next year under the Labor government it moved nationwide where it began to receive $8 million of Federal funding per year and bipartisan support. The program is an elected education and training resource for teaching staff and students on how to create safer environments for LGBTQI school students.

The program has trained 18,128 staff, has 546 member schools with 403, 392 students involved and is supported by 164 organisations nationally.

Recently the Safe Schools Coalition has come under fire from right wing conservatives Corey Bernardi and George Christensen and the Christian Democratic Party. These groups mounted a fierce campaign to cut the federal funding for the program and called for the program to be scrapped altogether citing that Safe Schools was being used to indoctrinate children into a ‘Marxist agenda of cultural relativism.’

Speaking at Politics in the Pub last week in Glebe, the Greens candidate for Blaxland, Suzan Virago said Safe Schools provided students with information on how to tackle homophobia and transphobia.

“Safe Schools program is a lifeline for many young people who identify as transgender, gender diverse or intersex. It is a vital education program. It is turning the tide on bullying, hate and discrimination within our schoolyards,” Virago said.

The Politics in the Pub event focused on the politicisation of the Safe Schools program by conservative parts of the political spectrum, detracting from the goal of creating more inclusive and tolerant schools.

Suzan Virago says that the politicisation of the Safe Schools debate is part of instilling a culture of fear around the LGBTQI community.

“The key objective for extreme right wingers and religious groups is to create a culture of misinformation and fear. The headlines and the hype do have an effect,” She said.

Dr. Victoria Rawlings of the University of Sydney, who also spoke to the event, outlined the risks for LGBTI children at school.

“LGBTQ young people are more at risk of depression, they are more likely to drop out of school, they’re more likely to have eating disorders, they’re more likely to self-harm, they’re more likely to have suicidal feelings and suicidal attempts than straight young people,” Dr Rawlings said.

Dr. Rawlings also commented on how politics is reshaping the Safe Schools debate.

“This program existed unchanged for six years before it blew up in the last three months and became a political chess piece,” She said.

In February the Safe Schools Coalition underwent a review into whether the program was consistent with the national curriculum. The findings did not support a scrapping of the program altogether but outlined several changes. The changes include an ‘opt-in policy’ for parents making the program optional through parental consent and restricting the program to secondary schools only.

Dr. Rawlings said that these new changes, “prevents a whole school approach and limits the ability for change.”

She added that the review of the program off the back of political pressure shows that the we have a long way to go in addressing LGBTQI issues in Australia.

“The review and its restrictions are symptomatic of a broader homophobia and transphobia in the community and the assumption that there is something wrong with sexual or gender diversity and that children should be protected from it in some way.”

 

 

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