Valaire v NSW Education Standards Authority [2019] NSWCATAD 16

Civil and Administrative Tribunal New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Valaire v NSW Education Standards Authority [2019] NSWCATAD 16 Hearing dates: On the papers Date of orders: 11 January 2019 Decision date: 11 January 2019 Jurisdiction: Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division Before: K Ransome, Senior Member Decision: The application is dismissed. Catchwords: ADMINISTRATIVE LAW – no reviewable decision – no point of principle Legislation Cited: Administrative Decisions Review Act 1997 Children (Education and Care Services) National Law Children (Education and Care Services National Law Application) Act 2010 Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013 Category: Principal judgment Parties: Olga Valaire (Applicant) NSW Education Standards Authority (First Respondent) NSW Department of Education (Second Respondent) Representation: Counsel: C Ronalds AO SC & S Swami (First Respondent)

Solicitors: O Valaire (Self Represented)(Applicant) NSW Education Standards Authority (First Respondent) Wotton & Kearney (Second Respondent) File Number(s): 2018/00257685 Publication restriction: Nil

REASONS FOR DECISION 1. On 22 August 2018 the applicant, Olga Valaire, made an application to the Tribunal. In her statement accompanying the application Ms Valaire stated, in summary, that her son Julian had studied Russian for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in 2017. Julian received a mark of 84% for Russian Continuers in the HSC but this mark was scaled down to a ranking of 41 which gave him an ATAR result of 66. 2. Ms Valaire stated that when Julian had enrolled in the Russian Continuers course, the information available on the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) website was that a Continuers course was developed for non-native speakers of the language. They therefore expected that Julian would compete against students with a similar background to him. They found, however, that most students undertaking Russian Continuers were from Russian speaking countries and had had the majority of their previous education conducted in Russian. 3. Ms Valaire believes that Julian's results should have been scaled against those of other non-native speakers and not those who were fluent in Russian. If this had occurred, Julian's ATAR would have been higher. Ms Valaire states that it was not until they contacted NESA following receipt of Julian's ATAR result that they were advised there were no entry requirements for the Russian Continuers course. She was informed that this was because there is only one Russian course available in NSW and all students are eligible for the Continuers course. 4. Ms Valaire has written to and received responses from NESA and the Department of Education about her complaints concerning the HSC Russian course and what she believes to be the injustice caused to her son in terms of the ATAR he received for his 2017 HSC results. She believes that they were misled by the information on the NESA website. 5. Ms Valaire has also written to the Ombudsman with her concerns. The Ombudsman did not find there was any wrongful conduct or that the Department of Education or NESA has acted unlawfully or unreasonably. The Ombudsman supported action that was being taken by NESA to improve the clarity of the information about Continuer language courses on its website.