Page 2422 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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available to teachers as classroom teachers. We could have made all those sorts of moves but we chose not to because we believed there was one area where education savings could be made which would not ultimately affect the quality of education going on in a classroom. I stand by the view, Mr Acting Speaker, that education is not a matter of the bricks and mortar in which teaching goes on; it is a matter of the quality of our teachers, the quality of our resources to those teachers and the attitude of the parents and those who make up the school system. This is what I hope we can save in this process.
MR MOORE (3.47): Mr Acting Speaker, the difficulty with the school closures is basically that the Alliance Government has been almost totally incompetent in its handling of the area. The debate that it has run has been at a very limited level and it was only taken to a reasonable level in terms of the economic analysis thanks to the efforts of a community member - and I refer to Frances Perkins.
Let me now refer quite heavily in the next 10 minutes to part 6 of the OECD 1985 document, Surplus Space in Schools - An Opportunity. Here it has been seen as anything but an opportunity. In 1985 the OECD document recognised that there would be surplus spaces, as it refers to it, in schools right across the western world. I quote from it now:
The focus in the past has been on simplifying the procedures for closing and selling schools, an essentially negative option.
That is what this Government has gone for. It has gone for the essentially negative option of closing schools instead of taking it as an opportunity. This document goes on to say:
What is needed in the future are positive measures to overcome problems of ownership, facilitate joint use, define legal responsibilities more clearly and make adequate insurance arrangements.
In other words, the Government must find a positive manner in which to use that surplus space so there can be a contribution to our community, instead of what it is doing - but it still has the chance to reconsider it. Instead of taking the negative option, it has the opportunity to turn over to this community an essentially positive option, that is to find ways that it can use the space. This should have been essential reading for each one of you before you actually made the decision.
We know that this particular document was passed to Mr Jensen a number of weeks ago so that he could read it and so he could speak to his colleagues - if he does - about the possibilities of school closures and the ramifications of them. This same document goes on on page 65 to say the following:
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