Page 1882 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Let me go on to the matter of small schools, or schools that are claimed to be small. I have been in schools, though I have not taught for extended periods in them, of 12 to 20 or 30 students. For the most part they have been excellent schools, and schools of that size have the potential to be truly outstanding. It is a shame in a sense that across Australia, though not in the ACT, schools of that size are diminishing in number. They are not appropriate for Canberra. I do not know what Uriarra's enrolment is. It might be getting down towards that number. But, apart from that school, they are not appropriate in Canberra. I would readily agree that in urban Canberra we should not have schools of that size.
The point I want to make is that small schools can be very good schools. The size of a school is not related to its quality. In fact, I will qualify that to one extent, that the larger a school gets - and I think we need to get over 1,000 for this - the more difficult it becomes to sustain quality. The very large schools become much more difficult to administer. But certainly there are no schools in Canberra of such a size as to make them difficult to manage. So when we debate the size of schools and say that schools have to close because they are small, I suggest it is a nonsense.
Mr Humphries: How small should a school be before it is closed?
MR WOOD: Well, it should be so small that you can demonstrate that it is no longer educationally viable. Now that is the size.
Mr Humphries: It is all relative, Bill.
MR WOOD: Well, then I would want to discuss a whole range of criteria with you on that matter so that we can demonstrate whether or not it is educationally viable - not economically viable, as you are talking about, but educationally viable. I think we demolished this morning any suggestions that they are not economically viable. There are no real savings to be made by closing schools. Let us understand that quality is not related to size.
I was concerned about a statement in the Priorities Review Board's document that says that larger schools mean more classes of acceptable levels. That causes me concern because it suggests that the review board did not fully understand how schools operate, or perhaps it may have expressed that poorly. Our schools are staffed on fairly well established and rather rigid formulas. Class sizes are established in that way and they are not able to be varied in any easy manner. In primary schools, for example, classes average around 30 students per class, quite large by Australian standards, and the formula is such that it does not vary. If your child is in a class of more than that, it is compensated by other classes that are
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .