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Education

Education quality in English schools ‘at risk from new funding formula’

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Report of public account committee says DfE failing to understand plight of England’s schools.

Report of public account committee says DfE failing to understand plight of England’s schools. Photograph: David Jones/PA

School funding cuts are threatening to undermine the quality of education in England’s classrooms, putting children’s academic progress at risk as head teachers struggle to find savings, finds a highly critical report.

MPs on the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) say schools in England are facing the most significant financial pressure since the mid-1990s, with school leaders having to find £3bn in savings by 2020.

Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of the PAC, accused the government of collective delusion about the scope for further efficiency savings and warned: “Pupils’ futures are at risk if the DfE fails to act on the warnings in our report.”

The scathing report accuses the Department for Education of failing to understand the plight of England’s schools, which have already had to cut staff, maintenance costs, IT investment and pastoral services to meet rising costs.

The report casts doubt on claims saying schools can save £1.3bn by better procurement and £1.7bn by using staff more efficiently, and urges officials to go out and talk to school leaders rather than rely on desk-based statistical analysis of school spending.

The government has been under sustained pressure over school finances as concern has grown among parents as well as head teachers. Funding per pupil is projected to fall by 8% in real terms by 2020 as schools face increased employer costs, cuts to the education services grant, plus the introduction of the apprenticeship levy from next month.

Wednesday’s report accuses the department of failing to learn lessons from the NHS where, it says, unrealistic efficiency targets have damaged the finances of NHS trusts as they try to meet growing demand at the same time as reducing costs. “Government must not allow this to happen in schools,” said Hiller. “There are troubling similarities in its approach – similarities the DfE is unwilling to recognise. Grand plans drawn up in Whitehall are dangerous if they are implemented without regard to real-world consequences, and we will expect to see measures to address our concerns as a matter of urgency.”

Among its recommendations the report calls on the department to monitor how schools are making savings and look at the impact on class sizes, curriculum and pupil-teacher ratios. It also wants the government to assess the cost implications for schools of the apprenticeship levy.

An education department spokesperson said: “We will study the report’s recommendations and respond in due course. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms since 2010, with school funding at its highest level on record at more than £40bn in 2016-17 – and that is set to rise, as pupil numbers rise over the next two years, to £42bn by 2019-20.

“These protections, and the wider investment in the school system, mean that spending per pupil will be over 50% higher in real terms in 2020 than it was in 2000, as set out by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.”

John Pugh MP, the Liberal Democrat’s education spokesman and PAC member, said that more than 250 head teachers had written to him in the last month warning that unless extra money were found standards would fall.

“Tory ministers must be the only people left who haven’t spotted the crisis in schools funding, or worse – they’re choosing to ignore it,” he said. “If ministers think they can find these savings without harming educational outcomes, they’re in cloud cuckoo land.”

The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “When even the Conservative-dominated PAC says that the DfE ‘does not seem to understand the pressures that schools are already under’, and that funding cuts could ‘threaten the quality of education and educational outcomes’, it’s hard to see why anyone else would have any confidence in their management of our schools.”

Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The PAC is entirely right to conclude that government underfunding is putting standards at risk. The DfE has buried its head in the sand over this issue and resorts to repeatedly stating that school spending is at record levels when it is fully aware that this is only because of rising pupil numbers.”

[“Source-theguardian”]

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Education

Why a lack of education raises death risk for some Americans

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Middle-age white Americans with limited education are increasingly dying younger, on average, than other middle-age U.S. adults

WASHINGTON –  Middle-age white Americans with limited education are increasingly dying younger, on average, than other middle-age U.S. adults, a trend driven by their dwindling economic opportunities, research by two Princeton University economists has found.

The economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, argue in a paper released Thursday that the loss of steady middle-income jobs for those with only high school diplomas or less has triggered broad problems for this group. They are more likely than their college-educated counterparts, for example, to be unemployed, unmarried or afflicted with poor health.

“This is a story of the collapse of the white working class,” Deaton said in an interview. “The labor market has very much turned against them.”

Those dynamics helped fuel the rise of President Donald Trump, who won widespread support among whites with only a high school diploma. Yet Deaton said his policies are unlikely to reverse these trends, particularly the health care legislation now before the House that Trump is championing. That bill would lead to higher premiums for older Americans, the Congressional Budget Office has found.

“The policies that you see, seem almost perfectly designed to hurt the very people who voted for him,” Deaton said

Case and Deaton’s paper, issued by the Brookings Institution, follows up on research they released in 2015 that first documented a sharp increase in mortality among middle-aged whites.

Since 1999, white men and women ages 45 through 54 have endured a sharp increase in “deaths of despair,” Case and Deaton found in their earlier work. These include suicides, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related deaths such as liver failure.

In the paper released Thursday, Case and Deaton draw a clearer relationship between rising death rates and changes in the job market since the 1970s. They find that men without college degrees are less likely to receive rising incomes over time, a trend “consistent with men moving to lower and lower skilled jobs.”

Other research has found that Americans with only high school diplomas are less likely to get married or purchase a home and more likely to get divorced if they do marry.

“It’s not just their careers that have gone down the tubes, but their marriage prospects, their ability to raise children,” said Deaton, who won the Nobel prize in economics in 2015 for his long-standing work on solutions to poverty. “That’s the kind of thing that can lead people to despair.”

It’s not entirely clear why these trends have affected whites much more than they have African-Americans or Hispanics, whose death rates are improving.

Case and Deaton note that many Hispanics are “markedly better off” than parents or grandparents who were born abroad, enabling a greater sense of optimism. African-Americans, they add, may have become more resilient to economic challenges given their long-standing disadvantages in the job market.

The data is clear, though: In 1999, the death rate for high school-educated whites ages 50 through 54 was 30 percent lower than the death rate for all African-Americans in that age group. By 2015, it was 30 percent higher.

The educational split is also growing. Even while the death rate for whites without a college degree is rising, the rate for whites who are college graduates is falling, Case and Deaton found.

Americans with less education are also faring much worse when compared with adults in other countries, Case and Deaton concluded. Death rates in Europe for people with limited education are falling — and in most countries, they’re falling faster than death rates for those with more education.

For those reasons, Case and Deaton discount the notion that government disability benefit programs are responsible for some of these problems by enabling more Americans to stop working. Social welfare programs in Europe are typically more generous yet haven’t caused a rise in death rates.

Given the long-running nature of these trends, many of which stem from the 1970s, reversing them could take years, Case and Deaton write. But there are immediate steps that could be taken, Deaton said in the interview. Routine prescriptions for opioids should be cut back.

And, “Europe has a much better safety net than we do, and they’re not seeing the same sort of problems as we are,” he said.

[“Source-foxnews”]

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Education

Security qualifications fraud ‘public safety risk’

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

security

The head of an exam board is warning that undetected qualifications fraud in the security industry is becoming a “risk to public safety”.

Raymond Clarke, chief executive of Industry Qualifications, is calling for tougher scrutiny to prevent fraud in workplace qualifications.

And when it applies to security staff, he says, such fraud is a “significant threat to public safety and wellbeing”.

Exam watchdog Ofqual said it had “a number of ongoing investigations”.

Safety fears

Mr Clarke says regulation is more focused on trying to prevent academic malpractice, but it is not adequately equipped to take on systematic, deliberate fraud.

He says he is speaking out because of “frustration” at the lack of effective monitoring – and because qualifications fraud is “more widespread than we might like to believe”.

He is calling for an expert panel to be set up to try to establish the extent of qualifications fraud, particularly in areas of security and public risk.

This could be in jobs such as security guards or door supervisors.

Such fraud could be falsifying course work or test answers, by individuals or colleges or training centres, to allow people to dishonestly gain qualifications needed for work.

And it could mean unsuitable or untrained staff being put into positions where safety would be compromised.

‘Lifting the carpet’

“In an age tragically marked by terrorist atrocities, we need to know that those charged with keeping us safe are appropriately trained and qualified through a rigorous system of assessment and accreditation,” says a statement from the Industry Qualifications awarding body.

But at present, Mr Clarke says, there is insufficient gathering of information and record-keeping about fraud and inadequate efforts to pursue those responsible.

And he fears that when fraud is caught in one part of the education sector or type of qualification, it moves to another.

“If you lift the carpet, there’s a lot going on under it,” he said.

Mr Clarke’s own awarding body was caught up in a case of fraud exposed by the BBC, when a college was found to be helping students to gain its qualifications fraudulently.

Undercover researchers found colleges that would sit or forge exams for a fee, for students wanting to get qualifications needed for a Security Industry Authority card.

But Mr Clarke says that the “worrying fact” is that people involved in such frauds “could still be active in the delivery of regulated qualifications elsewhere – nobody knows”.

He warns that for awarding bodies there is insufficient up-to-date information to alert them of fraudulent activity.

He is calling for better co-ordination with the police and ways to prevent fraudsters from returning to the education sector.

“A failure to confront the issue serves the interests of nobody other than the fraudsters,” says Mr Clarke.

‘Robust’ rules

There has been a long history of fraud at the edges of the education and qualifications system – and Mr Clarke says there has been insufficient effort to root this out.

“Bogus colleges” have operated as a front for getting visas for overseas students, and earlier this month more than 40 websites that had been selling fake degrees were shut down.

There have also been concerns raised about private colleges recruiting large numbers of people to courses they might not properly complete – with payments to colleges from fees and students being able to claim loans.

The qualifications regulator Ofqual said there were “robust procedures” in place to make sure awarding bodies gave qualifications only to “candidates who have met the right standard in assessments completed in the right conditions”.

“This includes ensuring that the potential for malpractice, including fraud, is avoided, and that suspected malpractice is properly investigated so that action can be taken against those found to be responsible,” said an Ofqual spokesman.

“As the exams regulator, we are continually vigilant about malpractice, including fraud.

“We investigate and take action when necessary and alert other stakeholders, including the police, and currently have a number of ongoing investigations.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Increase in free nursery hours at risk, warn Scottish councils

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Government’s planned rise from 600 to 1,140 hours per year will bring ‘no better gains for children’, argue primary headteachers

The Scottish government’s “most transformative infrastructure project” in this Parliament is in jeopardy because of a failure to plan how it will work financially and practically,  councils have warned.

Local authorities are calling for the government to set out “a clear delivery plan” detailing how it will meet its ambitious target to increase free nursery hours from 600 to 1,140 hours per year by 2020.

Ministers claim the move will help to close the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children.

But without a clear programme of implementation, the councils’ umbrella body Cosla has told TESS, the SNP manifesto commitment is at risk.

Headteachers’ groups have also expressed concerns over the impact, in terms of finances and workload, on schools, many of which have nurseries operating on their sites.

They have warned that school leaders will need “additional and protected management time” to organise nursery staff shifts to cover extended hours during holidays, weekends and after school. Teachers and school leaders work a 35-hour week and the change must not rely on “goodwill”, they have told the government.

‘We don’t have a plan’

David O’Neill, Cosla’s president, said: “We need a plan and we don’t have a plan. The potential consequence is a manifesto commitment made to the public might not be delivered.”

The Scottish government recently announced in the draft budget that £60 million will be made available in the coming financial year to pay for the additional workforce and infrastructure. But funding beyond 2018 has not been confirmed, with the government yet to calculate how much the change will actually cost – although it has committed to fully funding it. The previous move from 475 to 600 hours has cost the government £329 million over the past three years up to 2016-17.

Frank McAveety, the leader of Glasgow City Council, has called on the government to “put their money where their mouth is”.

Primary headteachers’ organisation AHDS, meanwhile, has said that it is opposed to the increase in free hours. It is “a very expensive intervention” that will lead to “no better gains for children than part-time” and prioritises quantity over quality, the body said.

The school leaders also accused the government of planning the expansion of free nursery based on a low-paid, overwhelmingly female workforce. The government has said its hopes that workers in the sector will be paid the living wage of £8.25 an hour but there has been no commitment to funding the move.

The Scottish government said work had already begun on planning for the expansion but it needed to consult before taking “final decisions on implementation”. A government consultation on the expansion closed this week.

[Source:- tes]

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Education

Nurseries at risk as staffing crisis hits, campaigners say

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Children following teacher's instruction

Nurseries in England are struggling to recruit qualified staff putting them at risk of closure, campaigners have said.

Since 2014, the government has said key nursery workers must have at least a grade C in GCSE English and maths.

But campaign group Save our Early Years said there was now evidence that this requirement was blocking staff career paths and deterring new starters.

The Department for Education said it was working with the profession on a future staffing strategy.

Figures from qualifications body Ofqual show about 12,500 students completed the Level 3 Early Years Educator course between July and September 2015, compared with 18,000 in the same period in the previous year – a fall of about 30%.

The course, which takes between one and two years to obtain, enables students to obtain their first jobs in nurseries and work with children aged under five.

‘Turn away children’

But industry leaders warn the drop in the number of those completing it is evidence of an impending recruitment crisis, which is already damaging the quality of childcare on offer to parents.

It also puts in jeopardy government plans to introduce 30 hours of free childcareto all three and four-year-olds from 2017, they say.

Under current rules, staff are only allowed to look after a specified number of children:

  • Aged one and under – One worker to three children
  • Two-year-olds – One worker to four children
  • Three and four-year-olds – One worker to eight children or one to 13 if the group is teacher-led.

The government requires that there must always be at least one member of staff qualified to Level 3 on duty, which means these staff are essential to all nurseries.

Julie Hyde, executive director at the childcare qualifications awarding body Cache, said if the government did not reverse its decision, there would be “no nursery staff and therefore parents would have no childcare”.

Liz Bayram, chief executive of the charity Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, said nursery chains were able to move staff around to cover gaps, but sole nurseries would be hardest hit by the crisis, she added.

In the association’s survey of 75 Further Education college leaders, almost three quarters (72%) reported that enrolments on Level 3 courses had decreased in the latest academic year (2015-16), compared with the previous year.

A separate survey of 278 private nursery owners and managers across England suggested the main reasons for nursery staff leaving their jobs were low pay and a lack of progression due mainly to the GCSE requirements.

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, which conducted the poll, said: “The serious staffing problems caused largely by these GCSE requirements can make these businesses unsustainable and force them to turn away children.”

‘Loved and hugged’

June O’Sullivan provides care for 4,500 children at 38 nurseries across London.

As chief executive of London Early Years Foundation, she is currently grappling with her business’s recruitment and retention policy to try to fill 90 vacancies (of her 650 staff) for Level 3 nursery workers.

She fears that unless the government changes the requirements, the industry will end up with more unqualified staff and nurseries will see a high turnover of staff.

“People just don’t understand the importance of the harmonious relationship you have to build with the children, their parents and the staff,” she says.

If parents can’t be sure their children are in safe hands, in a place where they are loved, hugged and taught, this may affect their confidence in going out to work every day, she adds.

Ultimately, there may be fewer nurseries, especially in London, if funds are eaten up paying agency costs. “Nurseries are not great profit makers. There is very little margin,” she says.

‘Counterproductive policy’

Former childcare minister Liz Truss introduced the GCSE requirement in 2014 in an effort to raise the quality of care.

But campaigners want the new childcare minister, Caroline Dinenage, to accept equivalent or similar qualifications, such as Functional Skills, which also tests numeracy and literacy.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said: “It seems completely counterproductive to persist with a policy that is actively blocking qualified, passionate and able early years practitioners from entering the sector.

“To say that the GCSE requirement is causing a recruitment crisis is not an exaggeration,” he added.

Writing in Nursery World earlier this month, Caroline Dinenage hinted at a possible shift in government thinking, saying: “Our Workforce Strategy is in development and I am looking at ways of getting the best individuals into the profession, while recognising that excellence can be measured by qualities other than exam results.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We want to make sure we get the best staff into the early years sector.

“We are working with the profession to look at how we can develop people’s talents and keep our most experienced staff. This is backed up by record investment in childcare – £6bn per year by the end of this parliament.”

[Source:- BBC]

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News Update

Meltdown, Spectre Security Flaws Found in Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs Put Virtually All Computers, Phones at Risk

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Meltdown, Spectre Security Flaws Found in Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs Put Virtually All Computers, Phones at Risk

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Google Project Zero researchers along with others discovered the flaws
  • Meltdown affects Intel chips, letting hackers read a computer’s memory
  • Spectre affects Intel, AMD, ARM chips, making apps give up information

Security researchers on Wednesday disclosed a set of security flaws that they said could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and ARM Holdings.

One of the bugs is specific to Intel but another affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike. Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, but it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix.

“Phones, PCs, everything is going to have some impact, but it’ll vary from product to product,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in an interview with CNBC Wednesday afternoon.

Researchers with Alphabet’s Google Project Zero, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered two flaws.

The first, called Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer’s memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer’s memory and steal passwords. The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD, and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information.

The researchers said Apple and Microsoft had patches ready for users for desktop computers affected by Meltdown. Microsoft said in a statement it had no information suggesting any compromised data but was “releasing security updates today to protect Windows customers against vulnerabilities.” Apple did not immediately return requests for comment.

Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered Meltdown, called it “probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found” in an interview with Reuters.

Gruss said Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches. Spectre, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term, he said.

Speaking on CNBC, Intel’s Krzanich said Google researchers told Intel of the flaws “a while ago” and that Intel had been testing fixes that device makers who use its chips will push out next week. Before the problems became public, Google on its blog said Intel and others planned to disclose the issues on January 9. Google said it informed the affected companies about the “Spectre” flaw on June 1, 2017, and reported the “Meltdown” flaw after the first flaw but before July 28, 2017.

The flaws were first reported by tech publication The Register. It also reported that the updates to fix the problems could cause Intel chips to operate 5 percent to 30 percent more slowly.

Intel denied that the patches would bog down computers based on Intel chips.

“Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits,” Intel said in a statement. “Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time.”

ARM spokesman Phil Hughes said that patches had already been shared with the companies’ partners, which include many smartphone manufacturers.

“This method only works if a certain type of malicious code is already running on a device and could at worst result in small pieces of data being accessed from privileged memory,” Hughes said in an email.

AMD chips are also affected by at least one variant of a set of security flaws but that it can be patched with a software update. The company said it believes there “is near zero risk to AMD products at this time.”

Google said in a blog post that Android phones running the latest security updates are protected, as are its own Nexus and Pixel phones with the latest security updates. Gmail users do not need to take any additional action to protect themselves, but users of its Chromebooks, Chrome web browser and many of its Google Cloud services will need to install updates.

Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing service used by businesses, said that most of its internet servers were already patched and the rest were in the process of being patched.

The defect affects the so-called kernel memory on Intel x86 processor chips manufactured over the past decade, The Register reported citing unnamed programmers, allowing users of normal applications to discern the layout or content of protected areas on the chips.

That could make it possible for hackers to exploit other security bugs or, worse, expose secure information such as passwords, thus compromising individual computers or even entire server networks.

Dan Guido, chief executive of cyber security consulting firm Trail of Bits, said that businesses should quickly move to update vulnerable systems, saying he expects hackers to quickly develop code they can use to launch attacks that exploit the vulnerabilities. “Exploits for these bugs will be added to hacker’s standard toolkits,” said Guido.

Shares in Intel were down by 3.4 percent following the report but nudged back up 1.2 percent to $44.70 (roughly Rs. 2,800) in after-hours trading while shares in AMD were up 1 percent to $11.77 (Rs. 747), shedding many of the gains they had made earlier in the day when reports suggested its chips were not affected.

It was not immediately clear whether Intel would face any significant financial liability arising from the reported flaw.

“The current Intel problem, if true, would likely not require CPU replacement in our opinion. However the situation is fluid,” Hans Mosesmann of Rosenblatt Securities in New York said in a note, adding it could hurt the company’s reputation.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Education

‘Your child is at risk’: Will Carrigan’s parents say education is key to suicide prevention

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Will Carrigan with his nephew Eddie.

Rugby league is a big deal in the Upper Hunter in regional New South Wales. But on a recent weekend, fierce competitors put rivalry aside and came together for a common cause.

The event was the Where There’s A Will round, named in honour of the former front rower for the Scone Thoroughbreds, Will Carrigan, who took his own life on Christmas Day 2015.

Will’s parents, Pauline and Hilton Carrigan, do not want anyone to go through what they have endured.

They have turned their grief into action and are campaigning to save lives.

“Someone said to me, ‘What would have saved Will?'” Mrs Carrigan said.

Her answer: “Education.”

Rugby players stand in a rowPHOTO: Rugby League players taking part in the Where There’s A Will round. (ABC News: Jerry Rickard)

‘Don’t be us’

Will, 24, was a fun-loving larrikin, his father said.

If you or anyone you know needs help:

  • Lifeline on 13 11 14
  • Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
  • MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
  • Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
  • Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36
  • Headspace on 1800 650 890

“Just an ordinary country boy that did his work, loved his sport and loved all his mates,” Mr Carrigan said.

“Took his own life. We never saw it coming.”

The couple said they could now see their son was struggling.

“How does a boy who has everything explain to someone that they’re not well, and it’s not what they want, or it’s not how they saw it going?” Mrs Carrigan said.

Will Carrigan's parents, Pauline and Hilton.PHOTO: Will Carrigan’s parents, Pauline and Hilton. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)

After their son’s death, the Carrigans set out to learn more about youth suicide and depression.

“If I can say one thing, don’t be us,” Mrs Carrigan said.

“There’s a certain amount of guilt that came when I found out the statistics and I realised our children had been at risk for an awfully long time and we didn’t know.

“So we are doing you a favour by telling you your child is at risk.

“Don’t assume there is a typical type that commit suicide. They’re just normal, everyday children.”

Hopes program will go national

Hilton and Pauline Carrigan stand with rugby playersPHOTO: Hilton and Pauline Carrigan with some of Will’s former teammates. (ABC News: Jerry Rickard)

The Carrigans launched the Where There’s A Will charity with the aim of improving children’s mental health through education, starting at school but involving the whole community.

“I realised that you could actually immunise a child for their future, that you could teach them resilience and give them a cup half-full [mentality] in simple terms that prepares them for the knockbacks that they are going to take,” Mrs Carrigan said.

With funding from the charity, school teachers have undergone special training. Positive education programs have been introduced into more than 20 schools in the Hunter Valley.

Kim Wilson, a Year 1 teacher at St Mary’s Primary in Scone, said she was already seeing results.

“In two terms of doing this the language has changed, the kids are expressing their feelings, and they can say why they are happy and why they are sad,” Ms Wilson said.

Where There’s A Will is also running “mental health first aid” programs for adults in the community to help them identify children who are struggling.

Media player: “Space” to play, “M” to mute, “left” and “right” to seek.

VIDEO: A message from the sons of the Upper Hunter to their fathers. Video by the Where There’s A Will charity. (ABC News)

Simon Murray, who heads the Positive Education Schools Association, said he was convinced what was happening in the Upper Hunter could lead to change across Australia.

“We will get data and evidence and publish that and this could become an exemplar for other regional centres and cities,” he said.

“This is a terribly important initiative for the rest of this country and I just hope the policy makers, the bureaucrats and the politicians, are actually noticing what’s happening.”

Mrs Carrigan said the hard work by Where There’s A Will and its supporters was paying off.

“We know that two boys who were contemplating suicide reached out for help and both came from that fact that they had been involved in [positive education] programs within the last six weeks,” she said.

“We lost our son, we won’t get him back. It’s our duty to make sure that other people don’t have to go through this and that’s the bottom line.”

‘Makes you pretty proud’

Hilton and Pauline Carrigan with Todd Greenberg.PHOTO: NRL CEO Todd Greenberg is proud the sporting community came together for Where There’s A Will. (ABC News: Jerry Rickard)

Back at the rugby league, Will’s former teammates said what happened to their friend had changed them all.

“It’s a big thing and I think it’s great what Pauline and the foundation are doing,” Tom Hagen said.

“Just getting word out into the community, just get a bit of awareness into people that it’s alright to talk and they don’t have to fight all their battles alone.”

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg attended the Where There’s a Will round.

“Makes you pretty proud as a leader of a sport to be here today and actually see this community come together for such an important cause,” he said.

After the game the local sports club was jam-packed for the auctioning of the players’ jerseys, with all proceeds going to the charity.

The last jersey to go was number 14, Will Carrigan’s.

“I think a lot of people in the room will know what it stands for,” Mr Greenberg told those gathered.

“I encourage you to bid strongly for it. I’m going to put the first one up for the NRL at $3,000.”

The bidding was fierce but the final offer of $13,500 was made by Mr Greenberg. And he’s sending the jersey home.

“This jersey could take pride of place in the rugby league museum, in a lot of places, but it belongs with the Carrigan family,” he said.

[“Source-abc”]

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