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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1298 ..

MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Ms McRae proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:

The Education Ministers poor management of the Education Department and the impact of that on education in the ACT.

MS McRAE (3.38): It is with dismay that I have been watching the developments in the Education Department, over the last year in particular, but really from the very beginning of this Minister's stewardship. The matter that most concerns me at the moment is the changeover of the two colleges, Hawker and Narrabundah, from terms to semesters. Up until now - and I hope that today might change the matter - there has been no educational justification for this change. We have been told that these two colleges are at odds with the rest in the system; that they offer a different program, a different time, and a different process of assessment from the other colleges. But they are two outstanding colleges, with very high out-of-area enrolments and a persistent record of very good TER results from their graduates.

So, the question that has to be asked is: Why? Why has the Minister suddenly woken up, as he did late last year through an announcement made by the chief of his department, and decided to make changes to those two colleges? At the time when I asked, I was told that it created difficulties for the number of students who wanted to transfer. We have never been told how many students ever want to transfer; we have never been told what those difficulties are. I suspect that the change is being made purely and simply as a departmental move to tidy up a few things and as a consequence of these two colleges being more popular than the others. I do not see, and have not seen, any good educational reason for this change. I think that the Minister is not paying attention to this issue, is allowing these changes to occur because his department wants him to do it, and has not looked more deeply into the issue to find out what is the educational impact of these changes.

Consistently at Hawker and Narrabundah, it has been shown that students, by being able to study term by term, three terms a year, rather than semester by semester, can catch up on their classes, can top up their scores, can alter their progress, by being given smaller opportunities to test out their choices and their interests and their capacities, and can actually improve their educational outcomes. If that is the case, I put it to the Assembly, why are those two colleges being changed? Why are the others not being changed? I have been watching this change, listening to the debate and listening to the people concerned, and I have yet to hear from the Minister a good educational reason as to why these changes are being made. So, I raise it as a matter of public importance, because it is time that the Minister took his portfolio seriously, took a leadership role, and did not simply respond to whatever his department decides is a nice administrative tidy-up.

The second issue about the management of education that I want to raise, which has been worrying me, is the whole management of the voluntary schools contribution and payment of school charges. That has been an ongoing debate since the very beginning of this Government's time. I will take members back to the issue as it was reviewed, debated

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