Letter from the Editor: We're raising a generation of kids who can't swim and it's costing lives

Sun, sand and surf – it’s pretty much how Australia is regarded around the world.

That’s really no big surprise, it’s pretty much how our tourism chiefs sell Australia to the world. I mean, Australia is girt by sea, so it just makes sense, right?

Check out any Aussie tourism campaign and you’ll see what I mean – glossy photos of smiling Aussies taking advantage of our glorious white sandy beaches and inviting turquoise oceans, crystal clear lakes and rivers. Makes you want to dive right in.

Tourists form an idyllic picture of Australians living next to the water and families spending all their free time frolicking in those beautiful oceans, lakes and rivers.

What they don’t realise is that an alarming number of Aussies haven’t learnt how to swim and would struggle to save themselves.

In fact, Australia is at risk of creating a generation with extremely poor swimming skills.

Royal Life Saving Australia released a report this week, based on surveys of parents and teachers, that revealed almost half of Australian schoolchildren about to enter high school don’t have basic swimming skills.

“Basic swimming skills” – key skills that are identified in the national swimming benchmarks for kids under 12 – are being able to swim continuously for 50 m (a standard Olympic-size swimming pool) and tread water for two minutes.

The situation is even more dire among teenagers – 84 per cent of 15- and 16-year-olds are unable to swim 400 m and tread water for five minutes, a basic lifesaving requirement and the benchmark for 17-year-olds.

In a land like ours, where backyard pools are no longer just a luxury for rich people, how on earth did we get to this?

Considering how high our annual drowning figures are (more than 100 last summer, roughly one a day and up five per cent on the previous summer) why aren’t people screaming for action to address such a life-threatening problem?

Even though I lived in the country for most of my childhood, I learnt to swim and like most of my peers I attained the bronze medallion as proof of my abilities. I admit I tried to dodge the compulsory school swimming carnivals, mainly because I wasn’t a competitive swimmer, but at least I was able to swim.

The husband, who grew up in an even smaller country town, practically lived at the local swimming pool in summer, emerging only to eat or sleep.

Swimming was just part of childhood, one that was as natural as learning to ride a bike or build a cubby house.

Missing out on learning how to swim while young has known links to an increased risk of drowning in adulthood. The National Drowning Report 2024 showed drowning rates grew tenfold between the ages of 10 and 20.

So where have we gone wrong in neglecting to teach our kids this basic, lifesaving skill?

Like so many aspects of our lives, COVID really screwed things up when it came to swimming lessons. Pools and swim schools were first to close and last to reopen under public health rules and it’s estimated the closures caused 10 million swimming lessons to be missed.

But that’s assuming that parents are actually getting swimming lessons for their kids. Many simply can’t afford private lessons – one in 10 children aged five to 14 have never attended lessons, with those from low socio-economic and regional backgrounds most impacted.

Royal Life Saving compiled the cost of lessons from 47 swim schools across Australia and found the national average was $21.78 per lesson.

Even those kids who are lucky enough to get swimming lessons often don’t continue long enough to learn those critical lifesaving skills – 59 per cent of children start swimming lessons before age three but most stop between seven and nine.

In days gone by, parents who couldn’t afford private swimming lessons at least knew their kids would catch up at school lessons.

But like so many other things today, cost, limited staff and lack of time has forced schools to cut back on providing lessons – today, more than 30 per cent of schools don’t offer learn-to-swim programs. Those who do only average 7.5 hours on teaching kids to swim.

Those swimming carnivals that I used to try to avoid are slowly disappearing too, mainly because of the low level of swimming ability among students, with only 76 per cent of schools reporting swimming carnivals were still part of the yearly calendar.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the mighty dollar and who’s going to foot the bill. Royal Life Saving has called for more funding for existing school and vacation swimming and water safety programs; more funding to target those groups more vulnerable to drowning (refugee, migrant, regional and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities); increased access to lifesaving programs in high schools and more investment in public swimming pools and swim schools.

Over the years we’ve learnt the hard way that our beautiful sun can actually be deadly, and money has been poured into education campaigns encouraging us to slip, slop, slap to protect us from the dangers of too much sun exposure.

Now it’s time to pour that money, education and attention into making sure parents and schools can access affordable learn-to-swim programs.

It’s a small price to pay to ensure this generation of kids are taught how to stay safe in the water so they can do the same for the next generation.