Page 1820 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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result in the lowering of educational standards in the ACT. That is seen by the Government as a totally unacceptable option. In the ACT schools system $1m is the cost of 30 teaching places. Reducing the number of teachers and increasing class sizes would save a considerable amount of money but would result in the lowering of educational standards and less choice of educational programs.
The Government believes it is preferable to increase the cost-effectiveness of schools by economising on the running costs of schools rather than to cut or reduce educational programs or levels of staff, and that does, unfortunately, mean amalgamating schools.
I think a magic figure of 400 has been bandied about - will the school be closed because its enrolment is below 400? But the number of students enrolled in a school is only one of the criteria to be considered when decisions are made on which schools are to be amalgamated. It is the Government's aim to have primary schools of a size which is economical and which enables good educational programs to be conducted. That means creating primary schools of about 400 to 600 students and high schools of about 800 to 1,000 students. That is what Canberra schools were based on when they were built and certainly those are the sorts of figures that I remember from my days in the state school system here. In fact, on some occasions the numbers were even higher than that.
Size is only one criterion and, schools currently smaller than the above sizes may be preferred when other factors, such as the distance children have to travel to school and the quality of school buildings, are taken into account. Canberra is proud of its education system, and the quality of education provided by all schools probably is the best in Australia. All ACT students do receive a good education whether they attend primary schools which have as many as 560 students, such as Wanniassa, or 540, such as the popular Lyneham Primary School or go to schools with fewer than 200, like the 148-odd who attend the Hackett Primary School. They still receive a good education.
There is a similar disparity in the size of enrolments at high schools but educational outcomes are high at all schools. It is widely recognised, however, that larger schools have greater opportunity for staffing flexibility and for wider use of their more plentiful resources, as I indicated earlier.
As the population of Canberra grows older, the number of school age children decreases, as Ms Maher said. I am not going to go into any of her figures, but it is a fact of life that some areas of Canberra developed over the years, initially, with a lot of school age children. The Woden Valley and inner Canberra suburbs are classic examples. As the children grow up, the population becomes older and, accordingly, there are smaller numbers at a lot of Canberra schools because of the demography. That is something that
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