Only one in seven ACT children can swim 50 metres by the time they leave primary school.
As the Victorian state government revealed ambitious plans to make swimming a mandatory part of the physical education curriculum, figures from Royal Life Saving ACT have revealed that only 15 per cent of ACT students are meeting the national benchmark set by the Australian Water Safety Council.
In the ACT the only program deemed "compulsory" for public schools is the Aquasafe program, a water safety and awareness program for year 2 students run by Royal Life Saving and subsidised by ACT Education.
From 2017 Victorian students will have to achieve the Victorian Water Safety Certificate, where they have to be able to swim 50 metres, as well as be tested on water safety knowledge, rescue skills and abilities in survival sequences, in the same way they study core subjects such as maths and english.
In 2016, 2760 year 2 students participated in the Aquasafe program, which involves five classroom-based lessons and 10 pool-based lessons.
Until 2014, the ACT government subsidised the Swim and Survive program, which was available to all year levels. This 10-day intensive pool-based program is still available to schools but they have to fund the program themselves. Many students did the program right through primary school.
The Swim and Survive program is currently $99 a student for 10 lessons, but Royal Life Saving ACT chief Cherry Bailey said increases were likely in 2017.
"It would be lovely to see the ACT Education funding increased to include some subsidy for students other than just year 2," Ms Bailey said.
In 2016, 36 public schools and 13 private primary schools participated in the Swim and Survive program. In 2013, when it was subsidised by ACT Education, 42 public schools and 10 private schools took part.
An ACT Education spokesperson said the rationale was that a two-week learn to swim program each year would likely have limited impact.
"However a water safety and awareness program, with pool-based and classroom-based components, would better equip students with the skills, knowledge and understanding to stay safe in and around water," the spokesperson said.
Ms Bailey said the results from the 2013 ACT Swim and Survive Report, which revealed the alarming figures, were consistent with today's data.
Ms Bailey said setting students a benchmark of 50 metres was only one component of teaching water safety skills.
"There is research behind both swimming and water safety in terms of survival aspects," Ms Bailey said.
"The one thing that has come out of the research base is that prolonged exposure to the water, the more time a child spends in the water, whether that's in a structured learning environment or just in a recreational capacity, the more likely they are to exceed in water safety and survival skills."
For mother of two Karen Ingram Hall, this has become evident since moving back to Canberra from Papua New Guinea, where the family lived for three years and where her children Claudia, 8, and Jasper, 6, "were in the water every day".
But since moving back to Canberra their exposure to water has been limited.
"We had an Australian-qualified swimming teacher in PNG who organised lessons, squad training and informal swimming carnivals, and both our kids were like little fish when we brought them home to Australia," Ms Ingram Hall said.
"But we were really surprised to find how quickly their swimming skills dropped off once they were no longer in the water all the time. They still loved the water, but it was clear we needed to make sure they were having some type of ongoing lessons, because we want to be able to take them to the coast or the pool and be confident that they know how to be safe in the water."
The children are now doing weekly lessons at Dickson Pool and will also do the intensive week-long summer program.
Claudia, who attends, Aranda Primary School, participated in the Aquasafe program this year.
"The Aquasafe program was valuable for us because it provided a snapshot of where Claudia was at," Ms Ingram Hall said.
"We were very grateful that the school provide this for us, and the focus on safety is very good, but it doesn't replace the regular time in the water that really teaches them how to swim and be safe."
Ms Bailey agrees that schools should not have to bear the burden of teaching children to swim alone.
"There's no doubt water safety and aquatic instruction has a place in the curriculum but I feel very strongly, as a parent myself, that parents should be exposing our kids to the water and a variety of aquatic environments."
Between July 2002 and June 30, 2016, 28 people have drowned in the ACT. Nine of those deaths were people under 18. Twenty-nine per cent of total deaths were children under four years.
Ms Bailey said it was integral that people were taught water survival skills for life.
"They need to have the knowledge bank set up for life," she said.
"We need to put in as much preventative work as we can, as young as we can."
A 2015 report in the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education that looked at the factors that affected a child's achievements in swimming and water safety revealed that students were more likely to achieve the national benchmark if they were female, attended private school, swam at least once a fortnight, had a pool at home or visited a public swimming pool.
Those who were less likely were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, had had a negative experience, and swam less than once a fortnight.
The report analysed data from the ACT Swim and Survive program for the years between 2009 and 2011.
What your child should be able to do by the end of primary school*
- Safely perform a compact jump and exit from deep water.
- Demonstrate feet-first sculling on the back.
- Demonstrate rotation of the tucked body, keeping the face above the surface of the water.
- Swim 50 metres freestyle with correct technique.
- Swim 50 metres backstroke with correct technique.
- Swim 25 metres survival backstroke with correct technique.
- Swim 15 metres breaststroke with correct technique.
- Demonstrate 10 metres of sidestroke with scissor kick.
- Dressed in swimwear, shorts and T-shirt, demonstrate the following sequence: a) Sculling, floating or treading water for two minutes; b) Swim slowly for three minutes, changing survival strokes after each minute.
- Float for one minute using an open-ended flotation aid.
- Surface dive, swim underwater and recover an object from a water depth equivalent to the candidate's height.
- Demonstrate a crouch dive.
- Throw a rescue flotation aid to a partner at a five-metre distance and instruct the partner to kick to the edge.
- Answer questions about dangers in the aquatic environment
* This is the Australian Water Safety Council benchmark.
