Page 493 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 June 1989
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MR WHALAN: Mr Speaker, the arrangements under the government leasing arrangements are conducted by the property branch of the ACT Administration in the Office of City Management. That is the way in which all arrangements are made in relation to property arrangements, and certainly that is the way that it will continue to be done. As there has been no property identified and as there have been no arrangements entered into, the second part of the question is quite inappropriate.
Technical and Further Education
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is to the Minister for Industry, Employment and Education. I draw his attention to today's Canberra Times and two articles that appeared therein, entitled "How not to do a TAFE exam" and "Late change to exam date". Is the Minister aware of these articles? Are the allegations made correct? What action is to be taken to rectify the matter and to prevent any recurrence, or are these matters just another Liberal Party conspiracy?
MR WHALAN: I would like to think it was the latter, but I think it could handle only one at a time. With respect to the enrolment complications, four and a half hours were programmed in two sections to enrol about 300 students. Unexpectedly, the majority, including night students, attended the commencement of the first daytime session. The problem appears to have been exacerbated by some students of the former Woden College being unfamiliar with the process used, which previously proved satisfactory for the former Reid College. Regarding complications with accounting examinations, a casual exam supervisor failed to arrive. There was another supervisor present but, being junior, that person did not start the exam. The senior supervisor had been incorrectly sent as a fill-in to attend another exam on the same day. Replacement staff was provided immediately the situation came to notice.
Also the last page of the exam paper was omitted, and this was redressed within 10 minutes of the commencement of the exam. The late advice of a change in the date of the accounting principles exam was accompanied by arrangements being made for a second exam to be sat on the originally advertised date in cases where students were unable to attend at the revised time. A letter of apology was sent by the institute to the affected students.
These unfortunate instances need to be considered in the context of an enrolment process covering about 15,000 students and the conduct of approximately 150 formal examinations in a week. The inconvenience caused to students was regretted. The popularity of courses offered and cost saving measures imposed to minimise administrative overheads and maximise student places mean that occasional problems do arise.
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