Page 2106 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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Departmental statistics reveal that, for the last three years, 24-26 per cent of Year 6 students have been identified as requiring learning assistance in Year 7.
That is the first year of high school. The letter continues:
Only 32 per cent of these students return to mainstream classes after the Year 8 re-test. The statistics show that, in 1993, 2,875 students in government high schools were identified as requiring learning assistance.
The letter goes on to advise that, even in the primary school sector, surveys on reading recovery indicated that, whilst 19 per cent of students entering Year 1 are identified as requiring assistance, only 13 per cent of those students were, in fact, receiving some assistance. The associations go on to say that the outcomes at the end of secondary schooling are also unsatisfactory because of an increasing drop-out rate between Years 10 and 12. They also point out that, in 1992, 83 per cent of February Year 12 enrolments received a Year 12 certificate. These outcomes have declined because, in 1989, some 89 per cent of February Year 12 enrolments received a Year 12 certificate.
What is the response of the Government to this request by the council? The council would welcome your commitment to begin a process for addressing these problems in the near future. The response of this Government is to provide $300,000 for a pilot project in primary schools only. Well may you wince, Mr Lamont, because $300,000, when you work it out, on an estimated 300 students in need, comes down to a piddling $23 per student. I accept that that is probably an unreasonable comparison. A more valid comparison, I would suggest, is to put that $300,000 into reading recovery and learning assistance in terms of extra teachers. That $300,000 would come down to an extra 10 teachers - only 10 teachers - which would work out at a ratio of one extra teacher per 130 students. How much reading recovery and literacy and numeracy improvement do you think they are going to get out of that? Very little. I would suggest, therefore, that we should look again at what this Government has done in terms of education.
I think it is particularly regrettable, Madam Speaker, that this approach has been adopted, because the Federal Government has given the ACT an additional $1.85m for training programs, there are another additional 200 part-time places in CIT for 1994-95, and there is the possibility that the Commonwealth will give us additional funds of $300,000 for entry level training, again to CIT. What a pity it is that, as a result of the neglect in terms of literacy and numeracy, a great many ACT students going forward to CIT will not be able to take advantage of this, and the money probably will be spent on out-of-town students. It is a great pity that we cannot look after our own people because of the neglect of this Government at the government school level.
I would like to turn now, Madam Speaker, to the question of housing. Housing is a case not so much of neglect as what is missing from it. I mentioned earlier today in discussions with Mr Lamont during question time that $9.3m of the Housing Trust expenditure has not been used. I therefore wonder why we are spending $280,000 for a private rental project for people on the trust waiting list. If this Government were a little more efficient
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