Page 855 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 25 July 1989
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The recommendations of the Chase report into ACT preschools will be implemented, including amalgamation of some part-time preschools, rationalisation of the use of resources and the introduction of new approaches to teaching. In addition, area preschools will be absorbed into the regional schools structure. These changes will allow us to honour our election commitment to maintain high quality preschool education in the ACT, without charge.
Savings in the schools area will be realised in part by addressing the funding imbalance which has built up between primary and high schools and the college sector. Staffing levels in secondary colleges will be adjusted to reflect actual enrolment patterns during the school year.
We will also invest $1.7m in classroom equipment in government schools. This will provide much-needed computer equipment and industrial arts machinery to assist in the education of our young people, and will permit better teacher utilisation.
Other proposals involve aligning hours worked with hours paid for new non-teaching staff in schools, reducing the cost of school buses by phased adjustment to starting and finishing times for government and non-government high schools and colleges, and making progress towards full cost recovery for community use of school facilities.
In respect of TAFE, specific savings will be found by changing some work practices relating to support staff, staff for evening classes and teachers in administrative positions. In addition, TAFE will cease offering the New South Wales higher school certificate and will adopt the ACT year 12 certificate for its daytime courses. Year 12 evening classes will be run by the ACT Schools Office under its existing program, thus eliminating the current duplication of services.
Mr Speaker, I now wish to outline the Government's new policy proposals. The hard decisions we have faced in the recurrent budget have given us scope to channel limited resources into high-priority areas. This is in keeping with our overall budget strategy for economic development linked with social justice. In some cases we intend to enhance programs already in operation. In other cases we will implement new programs. In total we have made available more than $5m for these initiatives.
In the area of economic development $2m has been allocated. Specific proposals include the implementation of our election commitment to provide an additional $1m for enhancement of tourism promotion and the provision of additional resources amounting to $400,000 in 1989-90 for the new TAFE tourism and hospitality facility opening in February 1990. We will also establish an industry assistance scheme and quickstart scheme to attract and assist new investment in employment generating industry in
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