Page 1688 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES (4.20): I want to add briefly to the discussion of this matter of public importance. I do see education as a matter of great public importance. In the lead-up to next month's budget I have no doubt that members of this place will have many opportunities to express views to the Government about the nature of the task it has in charting the ACT's finances to support important functions like education, health and whatever. My party yesterday raised and debated in this place the importance of public safety, law and order. We said that it is a very important issue, and I think it is fair to say that the Assembly similarly sees education as a matter of considerable importance. I do not wish to make comparisons between those two areas. That is an extremely difficult job which has to be done by the Government.
With respect to education, it is worth nothing that the present Government's policies have led to a situation where there is considerable concern about the level of support that many schools in our Territory experience. It is fair to say, as suggested in this matter of public importance, that the Government has failed to improve and to deliver quality learning outcomes for young people in government schools. I should say that my party is as concerned about the outcomes of education in non-government schools as it is about government schools. It is concerned also about other important outcomes in areas of government expenditure, and I refer, of course, to the debate yesterday; but that does not detract from the importance of the issue that Ms Szuty has raised and the concern that the Liberal Party has to ensure that there is a suitable outcome for the money that we spend on education, money which is somewhat more lavish or greater than the amount which one would expect to be spent on the basis of State standard education levels.
We have seen comparisons between those figures in this place before. I note that there are considerable concerns about the extent to which the education budget is funded at a greater level than would be the case if we were attracting State-type funding to that particular area of ACT Government activity. In other words, we have been less successful in considering those issues in respect of education than we have in respect of other areas of government expenditure. I must say that, nonetheless, the changes that have occurred in education have been painful, and I am not really convinced that for the last five years of change in education we have anything particularly impressive to show.
Certainly there are a few fewer schools than there were, say, this time 10 years ago. Most of those schools, as a matter of public record, have disappeared as a result of decisions made by Labor governments. There are probably a few fewer teachers, pro rata, than there were this time 10 years ago. We have possibly a slightly higher retention rate than we had 10 years ago; but, in the present environment of high youth unemployment in this Territory, the highest youth unemployment rate in the entire country, it is not particularly surprising that we should see such a high level of retention by our secondary colleges. Quite frankly, students at those colleges do not have any alternative. It is either go and do a further course after the end of high school or go onto the dole queues. The measures we use to determine the extent of success or failure in our system probably do not give us much joy about the outcomes that we have achieved. If we were sincerely testing the system and deciding whether we have spent the $100m, or whatever it is, on education wisely, we would have to say that we have probably left ourselves considerable areas of uncertainty, and even failure.
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