Colleen Harkin On Age Appropriate Education Content Mornings 4BC – 15 October 2024

The Institute of Public Affairs’ Colleen Harkin was on 4BC Mornings to discuss the IPA’s research into the national curriculum.

All media posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.

Below is a transcript of the interview.

Peter Fegan:

16 after 8:00. Plenty of feedback to get through. I’ll do it in just a moment. Now, interestingly, Colleen Harkin was listening. She’s from the Institute of Public Affairs. She’s a research fellow and national manager of the Class Action Research Programme. She’s been a teacher in both primary and secondary schools across government and private schools. She listens to the programme. We’ve got her on here before plenty of time. She joins me on the line. Colleen, good morning to you.

Colleen Harkin:

Good morning. How are you?

Peter Fegan:

I’m very well. I’m a bit confused. I don’t have kids. I need to declare that straight away, but I’ve got young nieces and nephews and I would be absolutely, I would be stunned if they went to school at seven, eight, nine, or 10 years old and, first and foremost, the teacher was teaching them about puberty. Second, though, to that, that there’s discussions about identity.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, that’s exactly right, and most parents would be quite shocked at what’s going on in the classroom. In using the national curriculum, under health and physical education and respectful relationships is an area called consent, and so a lot of material is in the classrooms under the guise of respectful relationships and consent. What’s really challenging for parents is that, that sounds very difficult to object to. Why would you object to your child being taught about respectful relationships? It’s motherhood statements, isn’t it? You say, “Of course, I want my child to be respectful and, of course, I want them to understand the issues of consent as they get a bit older,” but that is the Trojan horse for a lot of extremely radical agenda that’s being offered in the classroom.

Peter Fegan:

It’s interesting. I think about it, though, Colleen, and I know and I absolutely appreciate that it’s in the curriculum, and I agree with you 100%, I think that we need to start educating children on the changes in their bodies and things like that and talking about identity and talking about what’s going to happen into the future and stuff. But at nine or 10, really, is that the correct age that we should be doing it? I mean, look, I’m not the expert and you are, but I picture kids of that age running around the playground laughing and having some fun, not talking about identity. And certainly the parents shouldn’t be lectured on having questions about sexual diseases and sexual relationships when they’re nine or 10.

Colleen Harkin:

Of course. Of course. And the other thing that this goes to is that there’s only so much time in the classroom and the priorities are completely wrong. These children who are nine and 10 years old, about a third of the country’s children actually can’t read and write, you know what I mean? They’re not meeting even the bench standards and yet they’re being given age-inappropriate material. It’s a double whammy of a problem. And part of this issue also is that schools bring in external third-party providers to give the content to the students, and some of the stories that come back to me are horrific of what goes on.

I’ll give you an example of a school in South Australia where a third-party provider went in to talk about consent and respectful relationships and 14-year-old girls were being taught about bestiality.

Peter Fegan:

Dear, oh dear. Where was this?

Colleen Harkin:

This was in South Australia.

Peter Fegan:

How old were they?

Colleen Harkin:

These were 14-year-old girls.

Peter Fegan:

Being taught about bestiality, I mean, come on. This is just garbage. These kids have a right to have a clear mind. You’re going to be exposed to pornography, you’re going to be exposed to filth by the age of 16, 17, but come on, 14-years-old. I mean, this is out of control. Nine or 10-year-olds, we want to have clear minds until at least you’re 17 or 18. We can’t control it after that, but it’s important. But bestiality, come on.

Colleen Harkin:

And it goes to the point of, what is a school there for? It is not there to take over the role of the parent. It’s there to make sure that the kids can read and write and become independent citizens and all of that kind of stuff. It’s not there to take over the moral and ethical code and the socialisation and those personal life issues. That’s the role of parents, not the role of a school, and definitely not the role of a third-party providers to come in and normalise things that are quite radical ideology.

Peter Fegan:

I’ll put it out there to my listeners, and I’d like to ask you this, Colleen, before I do let you go, and I appreciate your time is precious this morning, but I would put it out there to listeners now and to parents, would you be upset if your child came home at nine or 10 and they’d had the birds and the bees chat without your knowledge?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I’ll be interested to hear the results of your listeners, but I’m sure that most people would, and this is the challenge in schools, that there is a lot of information that is being given to students that is hidden under other topics. So it’s not clear what the children are being taught. Parents don’t know about it. To that school’s credit that I heard in your preview that at least they told the parents, and the parents, therefore, parents should say, “I don’t want my child to be part of it. My child will not be participating.”

Peter Fegan:

The parent that sent it to me was so concerned. They were going up to the school this morning. They’ve pulled their kids out of school today because they don’t want them to have this lesson. I think it should be, okay, maybe we’ll flip the argument around, Colleen, and say this, okay, if you’re going to do it, maybe give parents the choice. Say, “Righto, if you don’t want your kids in school today, this is the discussion we’re going to have,” there might be some parents at home that say, “You know what? I don’t want to have this awkward conversation with my kid. I’ll send them to school.” But it should be choice.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it shouldn’t be at that age level. It just shouldn’t be there for that age level. But at least if the parents have the choice, then they’d have the choice to say, “I’m not going to send my child.” And parents do need to remember that it is their child. Their child is not a ward of the state. The school system doesn’t own their child. It is their responsibility to make sure that they’re on top of what’s going on and making decisions in the best interest of their own child.

Peter Fegan:

Good on you, Colleen. Do me a favour, stay away from politics because you make too much sense.

Colleen Harkin:

Thank you. All right.

Peter Fegan:

Good on you. There she is, Colleen Harkin. She was listening in. She’s from the Institute of Public Affairs. She’s a research fellow and national manager of Class Action Research Programme. But in addition to that, she’s been working in both primary and secondary schools across government and private schools. Look, I’m throwing it over to you. The court of public opinion is always open here at 4BC. The lines are going off. We’ll take some calls after the break. I want to get your feedback. Am I right or am I wrong? Let me know. I don’t have kids, but I want to know. 133-8-82, the open line.

This transcript from 4BC Mornings on 15 October 2024 has been edited for clarity.