Page 4141 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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It is obvious, therefore, that the ACT community, and especially our school community, can and do set a national example in realistic and innovative delivery of education. Twenty years ago this community decided to create its own mode of primary and secondary education, one with a different concept of basic parental responsibility for conduct and education provision in highly individualised schools. It demonstrated a will and capacity for change to meet the perceived distinctly new needs of people in the ACT. There is a new economic necessity to deal with now. It requires a matching will and capacity.
MR CORNWELL (11.27): Madam Speaker, I am interested in, and indeed welcome, the Minister for Education's comments about the brave new world that we are entering into. But I would suggest to him that he is putting the cart before the horse by talking in terms of reducing teacher numbers at this stage. The Lanyon High School initiative is exciting. Mr Wood allowed me to have a briefing on the matter, and I think it has a great deal of merit. I look forward to the success of that pilot program, and I believe that it will be successful, but the success of it is further down the track. Certainly, we cannot presume that it is going to be an instant success, and we must at least let the pilot have a run before we start making substantial changes.
The import of Mr Wood's comments today would suggest that we can move confidently into the future with fewer teachers from this point of time. I think that is premature, and I believe that we should be careful. It may be in the Government's financial interests to take away 80 teachers in the 1993-94 budget. I suggest to you, however, that it is not in the best interests of ACT education to do so. Obviously, the initiatives that Mr Wood has mentioned today need to be examined carefully. They certainly need to be trialled, as we are doing.
I am interested in Mr Wood's comments about the advantages that will accrue in reading recovery, in learning assistance and in the various areas of supplementation that are required in our education system. I repeat that these will not be assisted by reducing the number of teachers in this year's budget. The question of new schools I also welcome. There has been some suggestion that we on this side of the house are opposed to the development of new schools. That, of course, is not correct. Lanyon High and Palmerston - - -
Mr Berry: Gross opportunism.
MR CORNWELL: That comes well from you, Mr Berry - the man who calls doctors parasites. The Palmerston Primary School, the first school in Gungahlin, is welcomed by this side. I do not believe that we can sit back, Madam Speaker, and allow old structures to continue without examination. I think that what Mr Wood has put forward today should be welcomed by this Assembly. I will certainly read his comments with interest. But I repeat that he is putting the cart before the horse if he and this Government - and let us never forget that it is not Mr Wood's doing; it is the Government's doing - are to cut 80 teachers from the system under the 1993-94 budget proposals. He is putting the cart before the horse if he imagines that we can take those teachers out before we have trialled and piloted this brave new world of education that he speaks of.
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