Page 3554 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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12. The Principal of Yass High School or his/her representative should be invited to participate in the procedure of cooperative enrolment.
13. The application of out-of-area quotas is recommended only as a means of achieving cost savings or for reducing inequities in the geographical distribution of the high school intake.
14. All procedures for application of out-of-area quotas should be carefully monitored and recorded as a public document.
Little evidence exists that the Government or the department have effectively addressed those recommendations since that time. In a subsequent report by the Schools Restructuring Task Force, entitled Coming to Terms, on how a school system should respond to tough times, the task force stated at recommendation 2:
That:
a) The principle of freedom of choice of government schools be maintained
b) priority for enrolment is given to students living within the schools designated catchment area (Priority Enrolment Area)
c) the cost of transporting students travelling to a government or non-government school from outside that school's designated catchment area should be borne by the students or their families.
The recommendation about the cost of transporting students has been reiterated in the report of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Education of May 1994. In part, recommendation 8 reads:
Inappropriate and inequitable subsidisation by ACT taxpayers of particular groups of public education users, for example, out-of-area bus users and children of diplomats, should cease.
The question can be asked, "What has the Government done to effectively manage government school enrolments in the ACT?". I am afraid that the answer is, "Very little indeed". In 1993, Griffith Primary School closed because of exacerbated difficulties within the school community which were not effectively addressed or resolved by the Department of Education or the Minister. This was at a time when the Government had in place a policy that there would be no school closures during this term of an ACT Labor government.
Madam Speaker, I have indicated to the Assembly that the Government appears to be doing little to effectively manage government school enrolments in the ACT. In the report of the Select Committee on Estimates 1994-95, the committee reiterated its concerns about peak enrolment levels at government schools, pointing to
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