Page 2637 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I understand that it is the intention of the Education Department at this stage to close the Holder unit at the end of this term and to restructure programs at Dairy Flat from the beginning of next term. Obviously, Ms Maher knows my interest in this matter, since we visited some of these areas when we worked together on the Social Policy Committee. While I have concerns about futures, I have to say that I have not acted at this stage to impose another view on the Education Department. I am aware of the anxieties of high school teachers about the location of these students. They believe that they simply cannot be handled in their own schools, and that is a legitimate concern. Nevertheless, it is a secondary concern, because the major factor is the care of the students themselves - that handful of students who are currently being attended to at the Holder centre.
It is a matter about which I have had a brief conversation with the department, and I will engage in some more conversation to see that the programs that are implemented have a full range so that all students currently being attended to are encompassed within the program - not just the wider range of students that seems to be a part of the change to Dairy Flat. I am not necessarily rushing any development. I believe that it might be possible to wait until the end of the year, so that we can be confident that all the programs that are to be introduced will be comprehensive and what we all would want. It is a matter, Ms Maher, on which I will engage in debate with the department.
MS MAHER: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Mr Wood, I find that answer rather "around the forest", actually; it was not a direct answer. The itinerant service which is now available to ACT schools consists of one part-time counsellor, three itinerant teachers and one special teacher's assistant. I feel that this will be inadequate to deal with those children who need to be taken out of the school setting. Will more resources be put into those schools to help them deal with these children, what sort of programs will be provided at Dairy Flat, and will there be full consultation with those schools and those teachers using the service?
MR WOOD: I am not sure that using the itinerant teacher program to handle those students will be enough to cover their needs. It is a matter that I will look at. Certainly, there will be discussions with the schools. But the point I want to make most clearly is this: It is the students concerned - that relatively small number of behaviourally disturbed students - who are the prime concern. They are the ones that I will be wanting to see have a program to suit them. At the same time, we need to attend to what is happening in the high schools, but that is at the second level of priority.
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