Page 4139 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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The department is building these into the system level curriculum frameworks, which are clear evidence of the ACT's continuing depth of curriculum expertise based in the strengths of the unique school based development of curriculum. In our secondary colleges, also unique in Australia for their system-wide structure and comprehensiveness, all courses from 1994 onwards will be based on 40 course frameworks for course writing and moderation of assessment developed over the past two years. These frameworks will continue to be at the forefront nationally. They incorporate the national frameworks and profiles and include the Mayer project key competencies.
Under the budget, the ACT will also continue to lead the way in ensuring that vocational education and education about work remain part of our vital school functions. We have the first computerised work experience program in Australia, operating with full cooperation from all industry partners. Thousands of our students will continue to be placed each year for experience of what work is really like. The department is managing a major Australian vocational certificate training system project covering seven course areas, in which project we expect over 1,000 students to participate, commencing in 1994. Approximately 250 of these students will be involved in vocational placement, an enhanced form of work experience. This builds upon our pioneering work in E for employment courses.
The process of looking ahead to work smarter is in train. Last Friday we launched a think-tank of 28 professional and community representatives who will now plan in detail for a new direction in ACT high school education and school cluster organisation. The new model cluster of schools in the rapidly growing South Tuggeranong district will centre on Lanyon High School, which is due to open in the suburb of Conder in 1996. The think-tank will work to an organisational design brief which includes highly innovative proposals, among them shared resources, including staffing by some specialised teachers, and vertical learning teams of small numbers of students instead of the usual layers of Years 7 to 10. The teams will cover eight core, nationally agreed learning areas instead of a curriculum overcrowded with arguably useful extras. There will be strong support from computer based programs for study and progress in the teams.
That computer based support can be expected to build up from the development of interactive multimedia courseware by the department, in collaboration with the ACT's growing industry information technology. Late last month I launched a prototype courseware program called English Explorer to assist students with a Chinese-speaking background to learn English more easily using information technology. The method can also be applied to teaching and learning in similar subjects, including mathematics, physics and reading recovery. It will enable students to learn at their own pace, to accelerate that pace and to correct and improve on what they are learning for themselves. It will assist teachers to move from the pedagogy of the industrial age to the student enrichment of the information age.
That is a vital reshaping. Our schools and our teaching must equip our students for this time of technological and financial transformation. Those of us here today who did not have to prepare for life careers to meet the effects of a technological tidal wave will appreciate that. It will be impossible to equip our
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