One in five kids can't swim

One in five Aussie kids will give primary school with almost no power to swim, a study shows.

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MORE and more people are drowning in Australia but one in 5 children will give primary school with almost no power to swim, the Imperial Life Saving Society (RLSS) says.

Over 50,000 children will give primary school this year not yet having the skills to swim 50 metres, the duration of an Olympic swimming pool, the society estimates.

The job has now get a "ticking time bomb", impacting families and communities across the area in age to do and putting further pressure on drowning rates, it warns.

RLSS chief executive Rob Bradley says parents have a mistaken supposition that secondary schools will take this gap in swimming ability but many high schools don't teach swimming.

"Children without basic swimming and water safety skills at elementary schooling age then become self-conscious and discover ways of avoiding water as they get older," he said.

"This makes these children as teenagers highly vulnerable to peer pressure from friends encouraging them to have life-threatening risks on, in or about water."

The society's 2010 National Drowning Report revealed that the amount of drowning deaths is higher than at any sentence in the preceding 7 years - with 314 people dying in urine in 2009/10.

Fifty-six of them were children under 17, and 80 per cent of those were boys.

Education was vital, Mr Bradley said.

"Royal Life Saving's Swim and Survive program provides a tract for children from six months to 14 days old," he said.

"Our focus now is 'at risk' communities which include those living in rural and outside areas, indigenous communities and other groups who may ask assistance in embracing the Australian culture of water safety."

The programme is delivered in pools, schools and other aquatic locations across the country.

For details, visit swimandsurvive.com.au.