Page 4003 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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occasions the reading recovery indictment, which saw some 6 per cent of students from 1992 missing out on this assistance, we have not addressed the more statistically serious and more current 1993 ACT Auditor-General's report on the government schooling program.
I am well aware that our own Public Accounts Committee did not unqualifiedly endorse this report. Nevertheless, the information supplied to it by the Department of Education and Training on learning assistance could hardly be challenged. This showed the seriousness of the situation, namely, that for the past three years 24 to 26 per cent of Year 6 students were identified as requiring learning assistance in Year 7. Based upon the 1993 February update of the ACT schools system data file, this represents 740 children out of 2,964 in Year 6. The report goes on to state that only 32 per cent of these 740 students return to mainstream classes after the Year 8 retest; that is, 236 students. What happens to the other 504? Further, the report went on to identify 2,875 students in high schools, that is, almost 26 per cent, requiring learning assistance as well.
At this point it is important to recall that the MACPE report came down a month before the 1994-95 budget - a budget that saw a miserable $300,000 allocated to a pilot project in literacy and numeracy assistance in primary schools. One could argue: What is the worst feature of this Follett Government's budget action - the small amount of money allocated, the temporary nature of the funding, or the limiting of the so-called initiative to the primary sector of education? I will leave it to other members to judge which of those should have the greatest priority in condemnation.
However, what cannot be argued, because it is indefensible, is the apparent lack of accurate data on student learning outcomes, which is addressed at MACPE recommendation 5. I find it an indictment of this Labor Government and its claims to be compassionate and committed to social justice when I read at paragraph 5.9 of the MACPE report:
Despite the high retention rate in ACT secondary colleges a significant number of students do not complete their secondary schooling. The exact figures on how many students "drop out" or their reasons for doing so are not known, but even if the attrition rate is approaching 10 per cent (as some data suggest) this is a cause for concern. Access to education and training is increasingly limited for students who do not obtain a Year 12 Certificate.
I ask members: With this type of uncaring and neglectful approach to its education responsibilities, is it any wonder that the Follett Labor Government has presided and continues to preside over a Territory with one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the country? If anyone doubts the truth of what I am saying, let them read this stark reality set out at paragraph 5.28:
As part of a national trend, students use their Year 12 results as the basis for entry to the technical and further education sector for further, essentially vocational, education. TAFE systems are now tending to use TER as the basis for entry to courses so for ACT students without a TER, access to further studies at TAFE level may become more and
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