Page 4004 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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more difficult. The options for those who do not obtain university or TAFE places are limited, especially with high youth unemployment, and a number enrol for "Year 13" studies to improve their Tertiary Entrance Scores.
Given the fierce competition for tertiary entrance, Madam Speaker, no government can afford to let down its young people and their future. Yet this is what the ACT Follett Labor Government is doing, preferring to announce 50 places here or 20 places there on Jobskills projects. Good publicity, I assume, is the Government's strategy; but it is no substitute for a proper and properly researched education for these young people, who have been betrayed, I believe, by this Government and its cynical bandaid approach. The Government should do something positive and permanent about unemployed youth, that is, provide a comprehensive education for them.
Finally, Madam Speaker, I support the other recommendations of MACPE, in particular recommendations 1, 5 and 7, which I believe break new ground in recognising that schools and colleges are not simply academic learning institutions but places where young people should have the opportunity to learn other non-academic life skills if possible. In supporting recommendations 1, 5 and 7, I would specifically single out the statement of recommendation 5, namely:
There should be a review of the working relationships between schools and other ACT Government agencies, including health, child care, and social welfare to ensure the better integration of these services.
As I have said - indeed, pleaded - before, there is an urgent need to integrate other government agency services to assist our young students to survive in an increasingly competitive and challenging world. I hope that, if only because it is faced with the reality of an election in February next year, the Follett Labor Government has the pragmatic sense to support and enact the sensible recommendations of MACPE, despite the very obviousness of many of them, and does not consign this report to the library bookshelves where so many other education inquiries' findings gather dust. Perhaps the Minister for Education and Training will give a commitment to keep the Assembly informed of this Government's progress in implementing these recommendations.
MS SZUTY (5.31): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there are two major disappointments in the report of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Education that the ACT Minister for Education and Training tabled in this Assembly in May of this year. The first disappointment concerns the lack of consensus of views reached by members of the council in its report. There is no shared vision for the future that has been agreed to by all the key stakeholders. I believe that we are not going to see significant change in the way that education services are provided without agreement by the key stakeholders. I contrast this situation with the decision which was taken in the 1970s to sever links with New South Wales, when educationalists, teachers, parents, students and the community wanted and planned for a very different education system from New South Wales, and one where we could see the considerable advantages for ACT students. It is important that now we must have a shared vision for the future and we must be able to see the advantages for students that they do not have now.
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