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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4595 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

The other thing that was interesting in relation to the school and the history of the school is that it has been the subject of reviews in the past. There was a review in 1983 and another in 1991. The other interesting part of it is that some of the issues that are current today were current in previous reviews. These were things like the curriculum for younger students; the needs of students with learning problems; the resourcing and support for staff in curriculum development; that the school should not be a dumping ground for children; and the role of the general meeting. So what we are talking about is not a new situation. Some of these issues, combined with the success of the school, have been going for a number of years.

After we listened very carefully to what the Education Department had to say and what the SWOW community had to say, it is difficult to understand why the conclusion was reached in this review in 1996 to close the school. They are not just moving the school; they are closing the school, because the changes that are being made are gross. The question has to be asked: Why has the Minister come to the conclusion that SWOW should close? One can look at the site and wonder whether that is the issue, or whether it is too hard to look at some of the issues around SWOW.

I want to refer now to the review process. One thing that stands out is the unbelievable haste of this review and the lack of communication between the Education Department, the school board at SWOW and the school community at SWOW. If you look at the review you will see that it took three weeks. It was only over a three-week period. It was an extremely hasty review for such an important issue as a school closure. Many of the people in the SWOW community felt that they did not have the opportunity to meet and consult with the review committee. There was some concern expressed by a number of people about the difficulties of contacting the people doing the review. It was also very disappointing for a number of people that the outcomes of the review were reported in the Canberra Times and that Dickson College appeared to know about them before they were available to the SWOW community. This lack of involvement, not keeping the SWOW community involved in this process, is very sad. It was an unfortunate outcome of the review. It meant that it was very difficult to look at the issues of SWOW.

It is also very difficult to understand how the conclusions were reached to relocate the school to Dickson College and to take away Years 11 and 12. The review report does not indicate that these conclusions were being reached, particularly on the relocation, which was not mentioned at all in the review report. Apart from the hastiness of the review, you have to look at the history of SWOW and the Department of Education's role over the years in this situation. As I mentioned before, if you look at some of the findings of previous reviews and you look at the current review, some of the findings are no different. You would have to ask why some of these issues have not been fully addressed over previous years, and why, in respect of the findings of the review in 1996, there was no strategy to address these reviews, apart from closing the school and moving it elsewhere.

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