Page 1619 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 19 May 1993
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MR CORNWELL: No, she is not a member of the Liberal Party, Mr De Domenico. I quote:
"There isn't any doubt ... we can't keep building new schools in new suburbs if we can't make adjustments when schools get very small," she said. This was "not to say you can never have a small school," but closures were inevitable as the city's demographic make-up altered.
The union says in its members' handbook that although it believes school closures are short sighted and drastic, inadequate funding has meant a deterioration of working conditions and, for this reason, it "will no longer actively campaign against all school closures". Ms Richards says teachers will "oppose other forms of rationalisation and cuts," and are "left with very few options" if the community does not support enhanced education budgets.
We know that there is not going to be an enhanced education budget, given the Grants Commission identification of overfunding in education here in the ACT. Yet we also know from the February 1993 public school census - that is the official census, not the one I asked for which also identified the surplus spaces - that government school enrolments have decreased overall by only 0.2 per cent from 1992. In other words, we virtually have the same number of students to educate, but less money to do so. Even allowing for fewer students in the more expensive high school and college sectors, savings will be minimal and, of more importance, the Government cannot gamble upon this situation applying in future years.
Minister Wood in the past has tended to dismiss the surplus spaces, just as he dismissed the question of what is an educationally viable school, as non-arguments in this debate. Similarly, the Chief Minister, who is not here at the moment, has tried to paint me as some sort of ogre spreading unnecessary alarm about the future of ACT government education. This behaviour from the Labor Government's education apologists betrays their unease at the situation that they have created for themselves by their failure to address the issue of a decrease in funding. Indeed, these are the words of the Canberra Times education writer, Jane Dargaville, on 12 May 1993, and she is not a member of the Liberal Party either:
It has to be understood that it's just not possible for a school of a mere 100 or 150 children to employ enough teachers, at acceptable teacher-pupil ratios, to provide a full range of curriculum expertise and knowledge.
It's also arguable that children are disadvantaged by schools being maintained on sites where building designs are outdated, where libraries remain static, where technology resources are sparse and where teachers' capacities are stretched to the point that their own professional development can't be enhanced.
I submit, Madam Speaker, that it is time the Chief Minister herself, in the best interests of ACT education, put into practice the substance of her own words in relation to education in the 1992-93 budget speech. At page 12 she said:
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