Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 293 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

During the election campaign, the Liberals made a commitment to set a minimum standard for literacy and numeracy. What has happened since? There was no clear indication at the time as to how this was to be done. The Minister's statement to the house displayed no particular understanding of the complexity of this issue. I am concerned about those explanations because he said:

A more ... consistent approach to monitoring student progress will also bring the ACT into line with developments occurring throughout Australia.

What are they and why do we not know more about them? Why are we not given some examples of the many benefits that may or may not have already flowed elsewhere? Is he really talking about standardised testing? This is what we are finding more and more. Yes, it is; it is going to be standardised testing. What does standardised testing do? Does it solve any literacy problems? No. It sets up a differentiation. They say, "There are 3,000 illiterate children in Belconnen and 4,000 in Tuggeranong". That is all that standardised testing does. It does nothing to solve the basic problems that confront children who do not come through our system as literate and numerate as they could be.

Educators and anyone involved with the development of children know that there is a lot more to the problem of literacy and numeracy than a child not passing a test or not doing well in direct classroom work. It is a bigger community problem and a far more complex problem than learning your ABC when you are six. It needs a battery of specialists to deal with it in a far broader way than simply putting a child through a test and saying, "This child cannot read. He is 13 and he cannot read. He failed the test when he was 12; he failed the test when he was six. Now this child is 13 and is still failing the literacy test". That is where tests fail the system.

You need to support literacy programs with a wide range of skills. We saw no indication whatsoever that this Minister knew anything about it or was in any way prepared to commit the depth of resources that are fundamental to solving literacy problems. It is very easy for the conservatives to bleat, "Back in the good old days, we did not have these problems; back in the good old days people could read and write". But it seems to be extremely difficult for them to confront the reality of a complex, modern society; to deal with the problems that confront children in literacy and numeracy in the range of ways that are now open to us; and to deal with the real problems which are very often nothing to do with the school but are to do with the broader societal problems that those children are trying to deal with and then present themselves with symptoms of inadequate progress in school. We have a lot to worry about in this area because we are going to find ourselves with a labelling of our schools, a labelling of our children, as failures and non-failures and no real attempt to deal with the problems that actually confront children.

Then I came to sport. Mr Stefaniak was promising to give increased priority to physical education and sport in schools - an area which he claimed was sadly neglected by the previous Government. Firstly, I would like to strongly dispute that claim. He has never produced any evidence to substantiate the claim that sport and physical education were neglected. It is an affront to every school. Again, Mr Stefaniak displays his ignorance of how schools in the ACT work. Schools in the ACT determine their curriculum priorities, determine their programs, through a school-based board of management.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .