Scaled-up ‘safety-net’ schooling and the ‘wicked problem’ of educational exclusion in South Australia: problem or solution?

In this article, we investigate a major, long-running policy intervention to combat educational exclusion in South Australia (SA): the Interagency Community Action Networks (ICAN)-Flexible Learning Options (FLO) policy and program agenda (ICAN-FLO). SA is unique for having the only bureaucratically systematised ‘social inclusion’ schooling approach to the problem of early school leaving in Australia. We frame ICAN-FLO using the concept of wicked problems in policy and specify how some problematic features of ICAN-FLO since its inception in 2007 are predicted by this concept. Problems with ICAN-FLO include a lack of public accountability; shortcomings in transparency about attainment of students enrolled in ICAN-FLO; and the consequent danger that public confidence in ICAN-FLO will be undermined. Constructive suggestions to address these weaknesses are offered, including, more conceptual policy work in partnership with collective and independent stakeholder inquiry and research. We conclude that one ever-present danger with bureaucratically scaled-up social inclusion initiatives like ICAN-FLO is that such initiatives become a parallel ‘safety-net’ education system for the disadvantaged and thereby corrode the principle of an inclusive mainstream education system meeting the needs of all children and young people in SA or elsewhere.