Page 1685 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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I turn now to the Federal budget announcement of a national literacy study for students aged 7, 9 and 13, which I asked Mr Wood about last week. Mr Wood did not answer the question, and I am not surprised because, as recorded in the proof Hansard of 11 May 1994, at page 50, back in 1992 he indicated that there was no real problem in relation to literacy and numeracy in the ACT school system. He ignored the question, as well he might, because, as Mr Moore pointed out, the Government has done nothing to assist the estimated 1,200 students in primary schools that the AEU have already identified as needing assistance in learning either literacy or numeracy.
Mr Wood, in reply to my question today about why $1.2m had been cut from specific purpose payments for current purposes in the 1994-95 budget, said that it might not make any great difference; it did not matter. How about the answer that he gave to my question on 21 April about where the savings had been made instead of cutting 80 teachers from the budget? We were to save $1.5m. Again he said that it did not matter; we would manage to tighten our belts. The redundancy scheme gave us $3.2m. One might ask what this Government is doing about education when they talk about sacking 80 teachers and then discover that they did not need to do that anyway because 203 teachers had accepted redundancy packages. That probably says a lot in itself. I would think they probably baled out.
The whole point, Madam Speaker, is that this Government has, at best, a very lazy, casual approach to the question of education. I think the truth is that they do not really care. I would compare this lame and inactive behaviour with the Liberals' initiative of school based management and per capita funding, thus allowing schools to shake off the shackles of the dead hand of the Follett Government. It is not moribund; it is dead. Perhaps of greater importance to people out there in the system is that it is dangerous. It is dangerous because the stubborn adherence to bricks and mortar by this Government means that more and more schools that are getting smaller are being kept open.
Ultimately, if you are going to provide a viable education to the children in those small schools, that education is going to cost more money; and that money must come from somewhere else in the education system. I put it to you that, if it comes from somewhere else in the education system, other schools are going to miss out on what they should properly receive as their financial entitlement. This is the problem. This is the problem not recognised by Mr Berry when he interjected about closing schools. It is not a question of closing schools. Mr Berry is not here, I might add, to hear this. It is simply a question of whether we can afford to maintain the number of schools with the money available. It was an issue addressed by the Minister for Education in his comments, but it is certainly not an issue that has been addressed by this Government.
MS ELLIS (4.13): Madam Speaker, I would like to contribute to this debate, particularly considering the overwhelming air of doom and gloom that has been described by speakers other than those from the Government benches on this subject this afternoon. As Mr Wood has already mentioned, our government schools are maintaining high-quality education throughout the ACT. Our schools, in their daily program, are providing educational services of the highest quality. Parents of students at our government schools express high levels of satisfaction with the education their children receive.
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