Page 3635 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 October 1990
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with the least money will participate in the system, with the result that social mobility will be confined to those from the appropriate schools.
Currently the ACT has an excellent education system which is equivalent to any of the private schools. However, the private schools have been established with special assistance from the Commonwealth and without having to pay for the leases of land on which the schools have been built. This factor, combined with the high average disposable incomes in the ACT, makes the public education system even more vulnerable than elsewhere.
It is no wonder that an education system which has been run by parents reacted when it was told that up to 25 schools would have to close to save money. Parents who have been used to participating in their system have a right to expect appropriate consultation. To identify a perceived financial problem should have been the first step. An initial statement could have started with something like the words, "ACT schools are overfunded on a comparative basis to other States by 4 per cent, and the community is limited by financial constraints to contain the overspending". An appropriate consultation process could then have provided a range of possible solutions which could have included school closures, increases in class sizes, devolution of responsibility of schools and a reduction in the size of the bureaucracy, and would have provided room for suggestions by any interested members of the community. Thus, an appropriate beginning would have been made. Telling people that the ministry was going to close schools, and then offering them the choice of which one, was akin to allowing the victim of an execution order to choose the noose, the firing squad or the electric chair.
From the time of Walter and Marion Burley Griffin, an essential part of the planning of Canberra has been the neighbourhood unit. An integrated community centred on the primary school, the shops and the playing fields was seen, and is still seen, as central to a lifestyle which promotes healthy living conditions, adequate access and a community with a heart.
Many observers who have not understood the nature of Canberra have attempted to look for a vital and vibrant city centre of the type found in cities of 10 times its size. They have not found it. They have missed what was in front of them: the small building blocks of the community. The most basic of these is the neighbourhood centred on the primary school.
The 1984 Metropolitan Policy Plan was produced by the NCDC and is still the foremost plan for Canberra; in fact, it is the overriding plan, according to His Honour Justice Kelly in the Supreme Court decision on the Canberra Times site. Pages 186 and 187 of the Metropolitan Policy Plan refer to schools, and they are placed in context. It states:
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