Page 3564 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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ADJOURNMENT
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Wood: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.
Question resolved in the negative.
GOVERNMENT SCHOOL ENROLMENTS
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
Debate resumed.
MR MOORE: Madam Speaker, talk about surplus spaces in schools does not take into account things like after and before school care, which is a very important and integral part of schooling in the ACT at the moment. It does not take into account the different ways in which schools operate. Mr Stefaniak may not have been in a school since they sat kids in nice, neat rows, when we all stood up to speak, and some of us even did what we were told. I should say "some of them even did what they were told". Madam Speaker, as you well know, things do not operate in that way in schools these days. To suggest that you can cram kids in, in the way they were crammed in 20 years ago, is just ludicrous; but it represents where Liberal educational philosophy is - about 20 years back, if not further back. In fact, it is further back, because 20 years ago we were actually developing the ACT Schools Authority. I think that the ACT educational system at that stage was more advanced than the Liberals are now.
Madam Speaker, the crux of today's matter is access versus choice. We would all like to see people having as much choice as possible; but at the same time we have to recognise the need for people to have appropriate access to schools. One of the problems that we are facing at the moment, with students moving widely from one school to another or going outside their normal school area, is that, where a school is left with a small and diminishing population, we wind up with a situation where the only people who will not move are those to whose parents education is not so important. The students that are left will effectively be in a marginalised education system. That is the thing that it is critical for us to avoid. You have to balance that carefully against the need for choice. What we have at the moment is a system that actually encourages people to move and to make choices, instead of encouraging people to stay with their neighbourhood school. Mr Wood raised some of the issues around that. That is where we have to look for the appropriate balance.
Mr Wood said that Ms Szuty had not come up with any ideas at all. In raising this issue, Ms Szuty rightly pointed out that the Government should be making decisions about this; but, because Mr Wood seems so bereft of ideas, as he is bereft of decision making ability, on behalf of Ms Szuty and on my own behalf, I will present some ideas to get him moving. I will do that in a short while. First, I would like to raise this issue. He said that the Government is trying to provide some solution through its infill planning process.
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