herald-sun article today...

herald-sun article today http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12557712%255E2862,00.html

SMS used to dob in students
Paula Beauchamp
16 March 2005

MORE than 9100 Victorian families can receive SMS messages if their children miss school for unexplained reasons.


Eleven Victorian schools, including 10 government and one private school, have bought an SMS system that is being used to help cut truancy rates.

Those schools have reported falls in unexplained absences of 20 to 80 per cent.

Mark Fortunatow, managing director of MGM Wireless, the company that supplies the systems, said at some schools it meant an extra 50 kids were turning up each day.

The Auditor-General's report last year found more than 10,000 students skipped school each day and failed to explain their absence.

Year 9 students missed more than a month on average.

Under the SMS system, parents are also sent text messages if their child is late or skips a class later in the day.

On average, about 1 per cent of parents refuse to take part.

Hawthorn Secondary College principal Lynton Oaten said unexplained absences had fallen at the school by about 50 per cent.

"It's about improving attendance and getting better results for the kids," Mr Oaten said.

He said only one parent had refused to take part.

"He called it the Nazi checking up of his child," he said.

Mum Gaye Sullivan said the system gave her peace of mind.

"Leah, 12, travels a fair distance to school by tram and bus," she said. "It is great that I would be told if Leah didn't arrive."

Schools yesterday said texting was changing pupils' attitude to truancy. "They now know their parents will get an SMS by 11am if they wag," one principal said.

The schools and Opposition education spokesman Victor Perton yesterday urged the State Government to specifically fund the technology.

But Education Minister Lynne Kosky said different schools were reducing absenteeism in different ways, including through campaigns and employing more welfare officers.

She said overall budgets for government schools were already at record high levels and individual schools had a discretion as to how they spent that money.

Schools using the technology include Geelong High School, Weeroona College, Hawthorn Secondary College, Mill Park Secondary College, Kangaroo Flat Secondary College, Kyneton Secondary College, Leongatha Secondary College, Mordialloc College, Coomoora Secondary College and Upper Yarra Secondary College.