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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 877 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

That every child leaving primary school should be numerate, and be able to read, write, and spell at an appropriate level.

And further:

That every child commencing school from 1998 will achieve a minimum acceptable literacy and numeracy standard within four years. (This recognises that a very small proportion of students suffer from severe educational disabilities.)

That is the proviso. The recommendations will ensure a comprehensive national approach to achieving this goal. The ACT is in a strong position to respond to these national initiatives. We have already commenced an extensive professional development program, "First Steps", which we have offered to primary schools to enhance literacy teaching in all classrooms. Our early childhood teachers currently systematically assess students considered to be at risk for either Reading Recovery support or support through the learning assistance program. Additional teaching resources are allocated to schools on a needs basis to support these students. Our Years 3 and 5 system-wide assessment program, which is being implemented for the first time during April this year, will be using an assessment approach that has been endorsed nationally, and planning is under way for the introduction of system literacy and numeracy assessment for the high school years. We have the LUAC program in our high schools as well.

Throughout all of the various stages of consulting on the introduction of these programs, we have closely involved the education community, particularly parents. I am delighted with reports that have appeared recently in relation to the commencement of assessment for Year 3 and Year 5 students that indicate that only four parents opted to have their children not undertake the assessment at Year 3 level and only six at Year 5 level. That is 10 parents in about 6,000 or so students, because there are about 3,000 students in both Year 3 and Year 5. That shows the positive attitude parents are showing towards this. I think it really hits the spot, and I am delighted with that response. That is absolutely fantastic, and it shows clearly that the Year 3 and Year 5 assessment program has gone down very well.

Despite all this good news here in the ACT, we should not be complacent. We should still try to do better, and I think the time has come for us to pull all these threads together. We need to examine carefully what we are doing and to see what can be done in a more focused, more integrated way, so that we can achieve the maximum result with the resources at our disposal.

I have asked the Department of Education and Training to prepare a draft discussion paper on improving literacy in the ACT. This paper will examine the teaching and learning processes dealing with literacy. It will look at the interaction between school, student and family. It will consider the range of resources currently available for literacy improvement and seek to find the most effective way of targeting these resources to the areas where they will benefit most those with the greatest need. The paper will look,

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