Page 2075 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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MS BERRY: A number, and additional staff, has been put on at the Education Directorate for parents and families to call so that they can get that direct support from the Education Directorate. They can also ask their schools for support. We have also been working closely with the eSafety Commissioner on what more work we could do to support parents, families, children and teachers as we get through this serious email issue together.
MR WALL: Minister, what resources are being given to teachers to assist their school communities at this difficult time, particularly for students who may be finding it difficult?
MS BERRY: Our schoolteachers are incredibly resilient. This year has made it a challenge for them to do their teaching and learning in an ordinary way, more than anything. They keep having challenges thrown at them, and they rise to them every single time. I would like to congratulate the Education Directorate and our teaching community within all our schools for the work that they have done to support their school communities up to now, particularly through this incident. School communities also have access to psychologists—
Mr Wall: Point of order, Madam Speaker. On relevance, whilst I share the minister’s sentiment, the question was specifically about what resources have been given to teachers.
MADAM SPEAKER: I think she was getting to that. Correct me if I am wrong, minister, but you are talking about the opportunities within the department.
MS BERRY: Yes, Madam Speaker. Teachers have access to the psychologists in our school system—we now have 81 school psychologists operating across our schools—as well as having had additional training around trauma at the start of the COVID pandemic, at the end of the bushfire season. So training had already been provided earlier in the year to support teachers so that they could then support each other, importantly, but also support the students within their schools.
Education—IT security
MS KIKKERT: My question is to the Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development. Minister, how many student email accounts were breached in the email incident on Friday, and how many schools and year levels did it involve?
MS BERRY: I do not know that I have the actual number of email accounts. I would say that it was significant. It started in year 8 and I understand that it was distributed to a number of year groups, although I do not have the actual number yet. I do not think the Education Directorate has that number yet either. If it is available I can definitely provide it to the Assembly.
MS KIKKERT: Minister, what measures are in place to ensure that students or others have not copied or stored other students’ email addresses that were in the distribution list used last Friday?
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