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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2100 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

The schools equity fund will target schools with the greatest need. The money will be used to assist as many schools as possible, and details of the fund will be released later in the year. Our objective is, as always, to improve opportunities for students and to improve student outcomes in disadvantaged schools. The schools serving communities defined as being relatively disadvantaged will be identified according to Australian Bureau of Statistics socioeconomic indexes. There are five indexes that can be applied to ACT schools. They are based on census data. These indexes summarise information from a variety of underlying social and economic variables including educational attainment, occupation, family income and family expenditure. These ABS indexes are currently used within the ACT to target Commonwealth funding through the disadvantaged schools component. This funding, until now, has been available to only two ACT schools in a given three-year period. These indexes are the most reliable means of identifying socioeconomic status for targeting funding. They provide a good starting point for further refining of measures of relative disadvantage.

The Government, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, has responded to the concerns of the Assembly. We have taken steps to tighten up the administration of voluntary contributions. We emphasise the voluntary nature of contributions; we require schools to inform parents explicitly of this fact; and we will be watchful in eliminating any remaining discriminatory practices. Three "best practice" letters about voluntary contributions have been made available to school principals as exemplars to be used when writing to parents about voluntary contributions. The first letter is for use in primary schools, the second in high schools, and the third in secondary colleges. This will be followed up in a routine way to remind principals and school board chairs of the importance of stressing the voluntary nature of contributions. Schools will also be reminded in the same way that they should be most explicit in explaining to parents what voluntary contributions will be for. As I think the committee recognised at its hearings, and it has become painfully obvious, I think, to everyone, if you tell people what you need money for, if you tell them what it is going to be used for, you generally get a pretty good response. Available evidence indicates that the schools who do that best tend to get a very good response from parents.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Government will continue to support schools which seek to raise additional income from voluntary contributions by encouraging parents to make these contributions where they can. However, recognising that some school communities do experience a degree of disadvantage, we will establish the schools equity fund from 1997 to assist those schools. As can be seen from the report, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, we will also continue to monitor, assess and take further action as a result of follow-up action we will be taking with schools, the P and C associations and the school boards in relation to points raised throughout the report. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I commend to the Assembly the Government response to the report entitled "Voluntary Parent Contribution Scheme in the ACT School System".

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