Page 3478 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 23 November 2021
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The report went on to say:
The Education Support Office does not formally analyse school improvement documentation to better target and improve teaching quality supports and this reduces the effectiveness of the school improvement process to improve teaching quality.
This was not the only external source raising serious concerns about the performance of the directorate and our public schools. The ACT Council for Social Service and the ACT Youth Coalition said:
Educational disadvantage in the ACT is hidden and we need to be taking steps to address the inequities in the system.
Roberts and Leonard from the University of Canberra said:
A close examination of the PISA report shows that the ACT quickly falls to near the bottom of the nation when it comes to equity in education …
A report by the ABC said:
… the ACT still has a significant gap in NAPLAN results between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
It is clear that maintenance and infrastructure have been glaringly underfunded. Mr Assistant Speaker, you are the chair of the committee that has been looking into this. One Canberra Times headline read “Macquarie Primary School in ‘dangerous’ state of disrepair”. The Harrison School P&C said:
The school has been experiencing capacity and infrastructure issues since inception.
The Lyneham Primary School board says:
As a board, we are concerned that poor building maintenance increases the risk to student and staff safety and wellbeing, potentially resulting in costly repairs and litigation.
The Garran Primary School board and P&C committee said that they had been discussing infrastructure for five years.
That is what was being said by academics, the community, the Auditor-General, parents and teachers. At the time, I called for a proper and comprehensive review by a properly constituted body, a task force. I said, “I am calling for the government to establish an independent review into the ACT government education system.”
As the record now shows, my call for a comprehensive review was rejected by the Labor Party and the Greens. They were saying, “Everything is hunky-dory. It is all good. Nothing to look at here.” It was rejected in a way that was clearly politically motivated. No attention was paid to the myriad sources and contributors that provided warnings about the problems experienced at the front line of our school system. It was rejected. This call for a review to look into our school system was rejected.
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