Page 1595 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 May 1990
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and you do not increase the class sizes. You amalgamate the staffs. You therefore have a larger range of staff, and in many ways you have not only saved on costs but you have also improved the quality of education in those two schools. That is the process that I am sure will be undertaken and is now being undertaken on a very careful time scale by the Department of Education in consultation with others.
I now come to the very important matter of consultation that Mr Wood has raised. As it happens, tonight from 6 o'clock onwards there will be a meeting of the ministerial consultative committee. This will be the third meeting of that committee, which I chair, and that committee consists of representatives of P and Cs, boards, the Teachers Federation, public servants and others, all of whom are vitally concerned with the matter of school amalgamation - school consolidation. I want to assure Mr Wood that consultation has already been taking place. It is certainly taking place within the actual structure of the Department of Education, both in the regional offices and in individual schools. Again, I use as an illustration schools X and Y. These are real schools but I do not want to name them. (Extension of time granted)
The two boards and the two P and Cs of the schools are meeting conjointly because they realise that they cannot continue as they are - both of them half empty. They are trying to create some kind of consultative, cooperative endeavour from the grass roots - that is, from the P and C and from the community itself. The criteria for this issue will be announced this week or early next week and then there will be an opportunity throughout the public arena for discussion of them. I believe that that consultation will be carefully done. I certainly hope it will be and I will be watching it.
Like Mr Wood, I am well aware of the importance of the schools. It has been a tremendous experience over the past four months to visit many schools. I must have been to 20 or 25 schools by now, often on visits of two hours or two and a half hours. It has been the most interesting matter that I have been involved with since January. I am very impressed.
However, I am also in some cases depressed. Again, I am not going to mention specific schools. In some cases the schools have exactly what Mr Wood has described - school spirit, tradition, thriving activities and tiptop staff. In other cases, by the very fact of the demographic change that has brought about their low numbers, the teachers and the people involved with the school are aware of the problems they are facing and that does have an effect on them. I do hope that part of this consolidation process, properly, usefully and quickly done, with consultation, will produce in those schools a better temper and a better morale. We are not aiming merely for cost saving. I think that would be quite a secondary consideration. Just to
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