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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 295 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

Similar questions abound in relation to the Minister's decrees about the curriculum in general. By going hell for leather on sport, he has implied that everything else is okay; whereas a good examination of our school system shows that many boards are very concerned about a wide range of curriculum areas. He has cut their funds, in the face of a clear promise to do the opposite. Then he launches his vision for computers and the Internet in schools. Every school board or any parent that one meets is deeply concerned about this issue. What we are seeing develop is a realm of haves and have-nots in terms of information technology in the ACT and across Australia.

The Minister's silence on the detail of how the IT program is going to be implemented is very telling. There are some grand statements that every school will have these things, but absolutely no dollars put against it and absolutely no analysis of the varying capacities of our schools to raise this sort of money or of the varying capacities of our schools to have at hand the right sort of information as to what form of IT is good for our system. There is absolutely no plan to interlink and to network; there is no plan about maintenance of software; there is no plan about maintenance of hardware. All we get is grand statements about moving into the information technology era, but nothing to make parents feel comfortable that they will not be needing to pay out thousands of dollars to ensure that their children have access to the right sort of training in regard to information technology.

Finally, I would like to remind the Assembly of some of the other promises that this party made before it came to government. This was in May. Still we hear absolutely nothing about the promises. Not only have funds been cut; not only has a major confrontation been begun with teachers; not only has the entire system been turned around and traumatised by ridiculous plans and forays by the Minister into sport; not only is everyone concerned about where IT is actually going and about the future of school-based curriculum in our schools; but also we have a range of other promises that the Liberals would like us to conveniently forget about.

What about all the promises that were made prior to the election on which people voted for these people, hoping that they would come through? "Encourage teachers to undertake professional development". We have seen how that is. The first offer that was put on the table when they were trying to peel off the AEU from the rest of the union movement was that teachers can do professional development in their stand-down time. "Encourage teachers to undertake professional development". What sort of encouragement is that? The professional development that was going to be offered for teachers was all focused in the area of sport. The small amount of extra money that we saw being given by the Minister last year was to entice teachers, at the age of 45 or 50, to take up elementary gymnastics or some other realm of sport which they had managed to forgo in their training until then. But in terms of proper and full professional development, what was the first offer on the table? Do professional development in your stand-down time. What a mockery of a promise that had been made!

"Investigate the option of an all girls high school". That sank without a trace. Not a word have we heard about that. "Support teaching practices such as girls only classes". Have we seen any movement on that front? Have we heard any discussion from this Minister about gender bias in schools, about outcomes for girls, about fair outcomes

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