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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3851 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

I am talking about schools that do not have a spare person to pick up the phone. In a small school the bursar or the registrar and the principal are the only people in the office. Such a school does not have an excess of staff. The people you spoke about who went to train at Canberra High School left behind them a series of senior teachers able to take care of the school. I am talking about a very specific problem that would lead to a very specific request by schools. First of all, they would have to identify themselves as having a problem, in which case perhaps your help team could help. Secondly, the problem could be assessed on the merits of the case. I am not suggesting that there be a blanket drop-out process. I included in the motion the word "permit". The Minister would have to permit schools to drop out. It is a very specific process by which the Minister can evaluate just what the problem is before permission is granted.

The changes I propose, which I anticipate applying in not more than six or maybe 10 schools, will not affect the students. There will be no disruption to the students, Mr Moore, to pick up your point. As the Minister said, some of these things may not even be picked up in term one. There will be no direct effect on students in term one. The direct effect will be felt by very small staffs, for whom the calling out of the principal and one other staff member would be a major intrusion into the day. That is where the disruption and the pressure will be. I am hearing from people who feel that they have not had enough time to responsibly leave the school and do the training or people who, if they have done the training, have not had enough time to talk it through and do other things. That is specifically what I am talking about. I did not feel that I could confine the motion to that, because I do not know whether other schools are facing similar problems. My overwhelming impression is that most schools are okay, but let us not exaggerate the amount of time that they have had for training. It has not been 18 months.

In the course of the Minister's speech, he mentioned a training manual. As Mr Moore rightly says, with less than three weeks of the school year left we are going to a major new program, and the management manual is not out. These small schools cannot read it. It is not there. Yet the program is to begin on 1 January. The schools that are advanced in training or have had plenty of time to prepare and do things are okay. The schools that are not have nothing to fall back on. It is not good enough to say that all this is coming. It is not there, and that is creating the problem. There is a lack of understanding.

The P and C council has raised some issues that have not been resolved. Maybe there is no problem, but it is not absolutely clear that there is no problem. School resource agreements between the chief executive and the principals have not been established. What are we looking at? If the papers are not there, what confidence can we have that these people's troubles are being met? I am not suggesting that there is a major problem; I am suggesting that there are some very deep concerns and that people ought to be allowed to say, "Minister, we are on side. It is all right. We are doing it. We know we have to. But give us a break. Give us a bit of time". This is essentially the call for help that I have heard and I am responding to. I do not believe that it will affect the students if schools opt out. I do not believe that it will lead to major disruption. I do believe that if such a directive went out you would rapidly find these problem spots and, in effect,

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