Schetzer, Lou --- "Youth Affairs: School Days are not happy days" [2000] AltLawJl 73; (2000) 25(4) Alternative Law Journal 196

• YOUTH AFFAIRS
• School days are not happy days

YOUTH AFFAIRS
School days are not happy days

As we head towards the 10th anniversary of Australia's ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the denial of basic rights to school students is becoming more common place. For many students, their human rights dissipate the moment they walk through the school gate. Events at schools in both New South Wales and Victoria over the last year have highlighted the barriers faced by students who seek to express their opinions or are concerned about invasions to their bodily integrity.

NSW Education Minister John Aquilina stated in June that striking students at Rutherford Technology High School could be suspended or expelled. This case has been incorrectly described as the 'kissing and smoking' strike. As the striking students themselves articulated, they were not taking action over whether they can kiss and smoke, but were expressing their concern over what appeared to be a discriminatory and inconsistent application of school discipline. Their action was motivated by a sense that the school was not taking notice of their concerns.

The Minister was quick to warn the students that actions such as strikes could be construed as disruptive behaviour under new suspension and expulsion procedures.

Less than a week later, prefects at the Penshurst Girls High School were asked to distribute a newsletter promoting a controversial government 'super school'. After they expressed their concerns about using school time in their HSC year to distribute the newsletter, they were told by the principal that refusal would mean that they could hand in their prefect badges.

Both of these cases illustrate the worrying extent to which students are denied the right to express their opinions on matters that affect them in the school environment. In terms of issues of concern to young people, the application of school disciplinary procedures, and the opportunity to further their educational opportunities without hindrance or distraction, rate extremely high amongst their concerns.

In Victoria, less than a month earlier, a government High School in Gippsland announced that it would install surveillance cameras in school toilets to monitor truancy, smoking and drug usage. This followed the announcement by two Victorian private schools, Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne Grammar School, that they would implement drug abuse strategies, where students would be requested to provide random urine samples on the basis of a principal's mere subjective suspicion. Refusal would amount to grounds for expulsion.

These examples illustrate situations where students enrolled in these schools who are suspected of illicit substance abuse, a criminal offence, have fewer rights in terms of their bodily integrity, their privilege against self-incrimination, and their intimate body samples, than anyone else in the community. It is somewhat incongruous that principals at the two schools have greater power than police to request such samples.

Indeed, for the many former private school boys and girls who bemoan their school days as being akin to prison-like regimentation, these developments add considerable weight to such analogies. Whilst compulsory random urine testing may be an unfortunate characteristic of prison or detention centre life, it has absolutely no place in a school environment.

The absence of disciplinary pro­ cesses which accord with the requirements of procedural fairness is a further area in which students rights are eroded in the school environment. The decision to exclude a student from a school, either temporarily or permanently, is the most serious form of discipline that can be exercised in a school environment. Such a decision can have significant and detrimental effects on a young person's future, including their ability to access higher education, their ability to acquire skills to enhance their employment prospects. Indeed, there are demonstrable links established between school non-attendance and entry into the juvenile justice system.

The experience of the National Children's and Youth Law Centre in this area is that for many students who have been suspended or expelled from school, there is a common and general dissatisfaction with the processes employed by various schools, which appear to contravene the rules of procedural fairness. The most common com­ plaints are:

• not being told why they have been suspended or expelled;

• not getting a chance to tell their side of the story;

• not being listened to or believed;

• decisions being made before their hearing;

• unfair or inconsistent treatment given to the expelled student, when compared to others;

• being treated differently on the basis of skin colour or ethnic background.

In 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, in its report Seen and Heard: Priority for Children in the Legal Process, identified school disciplinary practices as a major area of disadvantage and inequity. Ensuring that school disciplinary processes accord with procedural fairness should not be seen as a bureaucratic millstone around the necks of principals and decision-makers in schools; it merely affords young people the same rights within the school grounds that they and everyone else have outside of the school ground.

These examples of a phenomenon that sees the effective removal of basic human rights the moment a student enters the schoolyard gate serve as stark reminders of the vulnerability of young people's fundamental right to be respected in their daily activities. No­ where is this more glaring than in the school environment.

If as a society, we want to develop in our young people qualities of civic responsibility and democratic participation, we should be encouraging them to constructively express their views on is­ sues that affect them rather than threatening them with expulsion, suspension, or other punishments. More than this, we should ensure that schools are vehicles to imbue a sense of civic responsibility and understanding of human rights. They should not act as oppressive outposts immune from the obligation to respect basic human rights and civil liberties.

Louis Schetzer

Louis Schetzer is Director, National Children s and Youth Law Centre, Sydney.