Page 1680 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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a whole range of the real educational debate at the moment. It is beyond the members in this Assembly to follow that debate. Most importantly, these frameworks focus on student learning outcomes - what students can actually do and what they actually know and value.
The ACT is also well ahead in introducing student profiles. The ACT Government has provided ongoing budget enhancement funds for the purchase of student profiles and for teacher professional development. This important work is achieving excellent outcomes - outcomes that will benefit every student in ACT government schools. ACT government schools are now well advanced on a system-wide two-year trial of student profiles which enable teachers to report more effectively on student achievement. The profiles provide strong and close support for the curriculum framework. Again, the ACT is well ahead of the rest of Australia in improving quality learning outcomes for all our students. I wish that members in the Opposition and on the cross benches would attend to this important agenda.
As for the middle years of schooling, the department has been engaged since 1989 in a thorough evaluation of the performance and prospects of ACT high schools. The process has included long periods of deep and positive consultation with the wider community. The whole program of reform is now nearing a tangible and exciting fulfilment. Lanyon High School in South Tuggeranong is scheduled to open at the beginning of the 1996 school year. It promises to be a very different high school. At Lanyon we looked at the benefits of the four-year project that I have been speaking about. Planning is now under the direction of a representative think-tank which comprises education professionals from all levels as well as representatives from the Australian Education Union, the P and C Council, the School Board Forum and other members from the community and from the department.
Essentially the think-tank is now working on a two-year lead time to conceptualise the nature of the school, to work through this with the local community, and to tie the high school firmly into the current cluster of primary schools. The purpose is to achieve a seamless progression from preschool to at least Year 10. Much of the work towards this end is already under way in the existing primary schools of the cluster. The principals of all these primary schools are members of the think-tank. We anticipate that the Lanyon cluster will change the nature of high schooling and preparation for high schooling throughout the ACT by its significant example.
The report I have tabled today will give us its valuable analytical assessment of advice and advocacy supplied by the ACT community through a strong process of consultation. I have indicated our positive response to those recommendations. In the meantime I am somewhat assured by the words in Ms Szuty's speech because, in the end, they bore no relationship to the words in her MPI. Ms Szuty, in her speech, found no reason to criticise the ACT education system. She wants us to spend more money, and that, of course, is the wish of a number of people in the community. Their answer to all the problems that we may discuss, to all the issues that are there, is simply to spend more money. We hear it from Mrs Carnell from time to time. The answer is to spend more money. We are not in a situation where we can spend more money.
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