Page 3559 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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The Government is also committed to providing new schools in new suburbs when the need arises. The Government is attempting, through its urban planning measures, to maintain as far as possible stable population levels in existing suburbs. This is to ameliorate the traditional decline in the population of school-age students after a suburb has been in existence for some years. So, we have been acting. We have been doing things.
Mr Moore: Urban infill does the opposite.
MR WOOD: No. You have to understand that, at the same time as we are doing things, there is a very significant decline in family numbers. The Government strongly believes that parents should be able to choose which school their children attend. We do not favour draconian measures to make students attend certain schools simply to manage enrolments. I do not think Ms Szuty intends that we should. She gave a list of recommendations from the Belconnen task force; but basically the recommendations were to monitor it, talk about it and consult. They did not really address the issues, except that one that I mentioned.
The Government and the Department of Education and Training recognise that competition between schools does exist. I am not against that. I have said that before. The key issues are how this competition manifests itself, what effect it has on school programs, how it affects access and equity for students with learning disabilities, and whether the marketing and advertising divert the use of public funds from teaching. Do the people of the ACT want an integrated system of public schools which is able to plan comprehensive school programs that offer clear and distinct choices for students in the learning pathways that they may follow from kindergarten to Year 12? Do they want one which is able to deliver on equity and access so that all students, no matter where they live or what are their attributes and background, are given a fair go when it comes to schooling? Or do the people of the ACT want an archipelago of competing "pseudo private" schools which aggressively promote themselves, using glossy prospectuses and promotional brochures as part of their marketing?
Mr Moore: No, we do not.
MR WOOD: Thank you, Mr Moore. I was most interested to read today Mrs Carnell's Canberra Times article on the vision for schools. In it she said:
A good, solid bit of competition between our schools can only mean a better education for our kids.
She also said that people who want to keep small schools going will have to market their school to attract more students. That is an alien idea in this city, based on numbers and based on dollars. The Liberal Party has presented no policy at all for monitoring school enrolments or even recognising that it might be an important issue to ensure that students have access to quality education, no matter what part of Canberra they live in. They just want open competition, with schools closing down, regardless of suburban need and all sorts of other factors. They would just close schools down if they cannot survive. The bottom line of their policy is unfettered competition between schools, with survival of the fittest. That is turn of the century, populist Darwinism.
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