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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 174 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Implementation of flexible methods of delivery is being encouraged. The cost of flexible delivery at Tuggeranong Flexible Learning Centre will be analysed early this year to establish the relative efficiency of this approach. Depending on the outcome, a centre may be established at Reid. With respect to improving effectiveness, the Government highlights these points: The quality and range of student services will be improved through collaboration with the CIT Student Association, CITSA, to develop a joint program for improving student services, drawing on the 1993 national client follow-up survey of graduates, the 1994 CITSA student opinion survey, the 1995 internal review of student services and the findings of the student services workshop held in December last year. The program will consist of an action plan and implementation strategy.

A graduate placement service is also to begin this year. Additional performance indicators will be developed where there are presently deficiencies in existing ones, to enable assessment of the achievement of the goals in CIT's corporate plan. A project resulting from the top structure review is being conducted to develop a benchmark of performance measures and identify continuous improvement strategies. The first stage will report to the Deputy Director (Academic) shortly. Arrangements to monitor the quality of teaching performance and develop improvement strategies where necessary are currently being made through an analysis of the potential of a formal system of student evaluation of teaching modules and also courses. This will result in a program of action to improve the quality of teaching and learning in CIT. I present the action plan, Mr Speaker.

MS TUCKER (11.51): Having gone through this report, I would like to make a few comments. I note with interest, Mr Stefaniak, that you have just stated that additional performance indicators will be developed where there are presently deficiencies in existing ones. I would like to stress that I think that is important work, because it is quite clear from this report that efficiency and effectiveness are defined in very narrow economic terms. While I would not want to pre-empt anything coming out of the competition policy committee, it is quite clear that there are grave concerns about this micro-economic reform agenda being applied to education and training. I think we always need to remember that education is an investment, not just a cost.

We should look at the objectives and goals - for example, to attract, retain and develop skilled staff committed to the institute's goals, et cetera. Yet we see also, somewhere else in the report, that it is cheaper to employ part-time staff. But there may be an impact on quality if you do that too much. These sorts of statements can contradict each other unless you do have very clearly defined performance indicators. When you are contracting out, the old issue of how you specify what needs to actually be the result of a particular tender is also coming up a lot from the community in regard to competition. When you are using contestable funding for education, there is a danger that there might be some social good or benefits lost in the attempt to save money once again. I am sure that there is a place for further efficiencies being found, as the report states, but there is a serious concern that these must not be at the cost of quality. We will be watching with interest how these performance indicators are developed.

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