Page 4006 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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I trust that the Minister has done this and can present to the Assembly today a comprehensive response by Government to the MACPE report and to the minority reports included in it.
I would now like to turn briefly to a number of recommendations made by MACPE and offer my comment on them. There is agreement by everyone that 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. It is a recommendation that Mr Cornwell highlighted. In fact, it is one of the few recommendations that all the key stakeholders agree with. I certainly anticipate that in such areas of broad agreement the Government will not hesitate to act accordingly. Indeed, the question can be asked: If action has not been instigated already, why has it not been?
Other recommendations have received similar degrees of support. These include recommendations 11, 12, 13 and 14, in particular. They concern a comprehensive review of the delivery of post-compulsory education in secondary colleges and the CIT; a need to focus on professional development activities for teachers; the ACT Government raising with teacher education institutions the possibility of expanding research into appropriate teaching strategies for students in the middle years; and, finally, the Department of Education and Training establishing a formal process for the evaluation of innovative practices being adopted in schools, for the distribution of information about these innovations and for encouraging the adoption by other schools of improved practices.
Other recommendations of the MACPE report have received qualified support. These include recommendation 3, which is about the infusion of resources in the early childhood years of schooling, to ensure a focus on basic literacy, numeracy and communication skills. The recommendation also states:
Such an infusion should not be at the expense of later stages of schooling.
I note that the P and C Associations representatives go further. They state:
We support additional funding for learning assistance programs in both primary and high schools, and not just in the early years of schooling.
Another recommendation which received qualified support was recommendation 8 - Mr Cornwell addressed this recommendation - about the ACT Government exploring ways of making savings and removing inequitable subsidies. The Canberra Pre-School Society qualified their support for this, by Marguerite Walshaw saying:
I agree with this recommendation ...
Mr Wood: As long as it is not preschools.
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