Page 383 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 May 1992
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As I conclude, I want to give the message very emphatically that, while we would like more, we really lack nothing. We have the best teachers we can find. We have good resources and good facilities. We have the ingredients for an even better high school education system.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.28): I would like to contribute to the debate, because during my tenure as Minister for Education I was certainly acutely aware of the problems faced by high schools - no less than by having visited some of them and seen evidence of problems in some of them. Indeed, I saw evidence of success in others, and I will come back to that question in a moment.
It has been well stated by Ms Szuty, Mr Moore, Mr Wood and Mr Cornwell that there is a problem which stems, in large part, from both the nature of high schools as institutions in our Territory and the nature of the young people who attend them. It is that problem which, of course, has to be faced and which is the object of this exercise today. The problem is partly a function of unavoidable consequences and facts. The age of the young people is a factor which is obviously inescapable and cannot be fully compensated for by adjustments in spending. The problem is also partly a symptom of the fact that we have taken directions in education in the ACT which put pressure on the high school years of education.
It is generally accepted that the period of young adolescence, 12 to 15 years, is the most challenging time for people who are learning and those who are teaching those people. At that particular period, the physical, social and intellectual development of young people is rapid and is coupled with a growing sense of independence, and those changes cause problems. We have said in the past - I think I said it as Minister - that high schools were the weak link in our chain, and that is undoubtedly true. Obviously, the chain as a whole is pretty strong, and we cannot - - -
Mr Wood: I would not say that it is the weak link.
MR HUMPHRIES: I have said that, and I do not resile from it now. If there is any area that is likely to fall down, likely not to support the weight that is put on it, it is high schools, and in that sense they are a weak link. As I have said, this is partly because of the problems inherent in the age group we are dealing with, but also because of the way in which we have structured the rest of the system.
We have talked a bit already in this debate about secondary colleges. Mr Cornwell said that high schools were the poor cousins because colleges had obtained the resources. Historically, that has been the case. Part of the problem, though, also relates to the fact that by taking year 11 and year 12 students out of the high school system you have deprived, in a way, the secondary school system of some leadership, the sort of example which is expected of the year 11 and year 12 students.
I went to school with year 11 and year 12 students, and those students were the prefects of the school. They were expected to set an example in the school. They provided a certain ambition for lower students. That kind of leadership, of course, is missing in our high schools, because year 10 students are merely on the last stepping stone before going into a secondary college, and that causes some problems.
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