The federal government’s ongoing funding of consent education, including its $77.6 million for public and non-government schools announced last week, is a positive sign that our political leaders are investing in prevention and early intervention measures to end sexual violence.
While this funding is much needed and an encouraging first step, we need to ensure the investments made today make a tangible impact tomorrow and well into the future.
This means taking a long-term lens that goes beyond the current five year plan and incorporates a whole-of-community approach to enabling access for every young person across Australia to evidence-based and inclusive consent education.
Consistency and a long-term approach are critical for consent education to be impactful
Last week’s funding announcement was part of a five-year plan. Again, this is a huge and positive step, and the importance of making multi-year investments to prevent the complex problem of sexual violence in Australia cannot be undervalued.
However, with consent education currently part of the curriculum for years K-10, these five years of funding would not even last the full length of a students’ consent education requirement if they were in year 4 or below today.
We need a longer term approach to funding. Not just because we need every child to benefit from consent education five years from now, but also because evidence shows consent education needs to be consistently and sequentially delivered to be effective.
Currently, many schools are delivering consent education in a piecemeal way, often noting a lack of funding as the reason. We speak with schools where resource constraints require a Health and Physical Education Teacher to deliver consent education to Year 7 students, then in Year 8 they bring in an external provider, and in Year 9 it becomes a Science Teacher who suddenly needs to incorporate it into their lesson plans.
While the intention and efforts made by the school and its staff is admirable and often the best they can do with the limited resources they have, the experience for students is disconnected and likely nowhere near as effective as it could be.
With long-term funding, schools can make long-term plans. This means students can build upon their consent education received in previous years rather than potentially covering the same topics or skipping over important materials. It also means teacher development and training can be invested in with a long-term view so our educators have the tools and resources they need to teach with confidence, or they can plan to bring in external experts if needed.
Supporting teachers and our young people throughout their high school education
The government’s funding can be used for teachers’ personal development, such as evidence-based professional learning for staff. At a time when teachers are overburdened and too many are leaving the profession from being stressed, underpaid and over-worked, this access to immediate funds to navigate what for many will be a completely new field is critical.
Many of the teachers my team speak to in our day-to-day work of delivering evidence-based consent and respectful relationships workshops tell us they feel underequipped and uncomfortable with delivering consent education. Since consent education has become part of the curriculum, while education professionals welcome its addition and recognise it is much needed, many teachers are struggling with how to deliver it effectively considering their already full workloads.
It will be important to check in with teachers once this funding has been used for teacher development to understand whether they are getting what they need in terms of tools, knowledge-sharing and resources. If so, this will be a fantastic proof point of how empowering teachers helps to empower young people.
Taking learnings from this initiative, we should look then to extend the inclusion of consent education in school curriculums to include Year 11 and 12 students. The last two years of high school represent a critical juncture in many young people’s lives as they are more likely to be sexually active during these years and are looking ahead to, what is for most, a high-risk time when it comes to consent – i.e. Many students will be planning for Schoolies, heading into tertiary studies, joining the workforce, and will be legally able to consume alcohol. It is critical that all young people going through these experiences are supported with evidence-based consent education.
Ensuring equity with clear standards
To ensure every young person has access to the same level of quality consent education, we need to discuss what ‘good’ looks like. Our federal Government has an opportunity now to start defining a set of minimum standards that teachers can work towards, improving equity in our education system.
Without a clear standard, there is a significant risk that schools could start using and paying providers for services that are not evidence-based or inclusive.
Our schools and students need the government to play a role in quality-assuring providers, similar to how other programs are conducted such as the Student Wellbeing External Programs Catalogue in NSW.
Developing an industry-wide definition and mandate of ‘high-quality consent education’ will maximise the impact for students and school communities. It will also help to reduce workloads for schools, removing the burden of researching the growing number of providers, which may or may not be appropriate for their students.
The momentum and awareness being built around consent education is both overdue and motivating for anyone working in this sector. We have been calling for this attention and funding for years and finally, we have it.
Now is the time to ensure we do this right. We cannot settle for mere box-ticking, and should instead be striving to empower teachers, parents, carers, students, and everyone in their communities to have constructive and impactful conversations that help our society truly eradicate sexual violence.