Page 1812 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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MR MOORE: I have taught in small schools; I know the advantages and disadvantages. I could spend some time talking to you about the advantages. The reality of the situation is that, from an educational perspective, the disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. If you do not believe that, go and talk to the parents who send their kids to those schools.
I accept that not all teachers will agree with that. That is true, because often teachers will have more work in a smaller school. Sometimes they will have more work in a bigger school. But members ought to talk to those teachers at Ginninderra High School as well and see how they feel about the overcrowding, how they feel about a staffroom that is half the size of this room but has to cater for 40 people.
We now come to the facts that Mr Humphries was supposedly going to tell us. We have still got this ridiculous concept, this lie that the Government keeps forcing on the people of Canberra, that we have this incredible number of spare spaces. That is only true in the same concept that we have 50 or 60 spare spaces in this Assembly. That is a nonsense. It is a nonsense concept about the Assembly and it is a nonsense concept about the schools.
I refer to page 61 of the annual report that was tabled by Mr Humphries in this Assembly. It says, "There is now little surplus space in ACT public school system". That was tabled by Mr Humphries, who is now going to distinguish between "space" and "places". How do you work out the number of places? This is the argument that Mr Humphries presented at a meeting at Hackett the other night. There is a difference between space and places. Places are worked out by establishing the space and, in the case of high schools, multiplying by 19, and in the case of primary schools, by 30 - or whatever figure the department decides to tell you.
The point is that we are talking about exactly the same thing, and what we have here is a snow job. You as Ministers are being snowed, you are being misled and you want to be very careful that you do not do the same to this house, because that is considered a particularly serious matter. If I thought a censure motion would work, if I thought I could unload this Government by any of those methods to protect the public education system to give some social justice to this community, I would not hesitate to do so.
MS MAHER (11.26): Much has been said about small schools in Canberra, yet Canberra has no schools that were intended to be small. Canberra schools were built to run efficiently with 400, 500 or even 600 students. In the public discussion there has been a lack of realisation of the fact that the Canberra schools which now have enrolments of only 200 or 300 children previously had twice as many. The fact that those schools were excellent has
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