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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1868 ..

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (5.28): Mr Speaker, naturally, with anything that is a little bit different, there are always some reasonable ongoing concerns. Generally, a number of the points Ms McRae mentioned have a lot of merit. Obviously, she has expressed a number of concerns which some people in the system have. I will come to the positives later, Mr Speaker; I will just deal now with a few points that have been made.

Ms Tucker: Please - - -

MR STEFANIAK: I do not want to be terribly long either, Kerrie; do not worry. Ms McRae mentioned some ongoing concerns with a few small schools, and that is so. That is why the department has such things as help desks or even people who go out and assist. We realise that in Canberra we are blessed by having a pretty homogeneous population, people spread right throughout the city, no real ghettos or areas of extreme social disadvantage like some other cities, although there certainly are pockets of it. We are lucky that, in most situations, on a school board you will always find one or two people who have relevant expertise and some good ideas, who really can assist a school in terms of enhanced school-based management. We are also blessed with some very skilled teachers and some very skilled principals. I think that is of immense assistance, too, when we talk about enhanced school-based management.

Ms McRae talked a bit about hit-and-miss - whom you get on the board and whether the principal stays all year. Those are quite relevant. Those things do happen. You might have an absolute champion as chair of a board, who suddenly leaves, and you might have trouble replacing that person. You might have a problem of a principal going halfway through. I hark back to the fact that in the ACT we are blessed with some very talented people in our community and certainly some very talented teachers and school principals in the system to take up the reins, should that happen.

Ms McRae also mentioned the question of relief funds. She also suggested that there is certainly a trial and error factor there. In terms of that, I suppose it is very much a matter for the schools themselves to see what is best to accommodate the unique needs of each school population. I would imagine that there might be a little bit of trial and error in that, and occasionally maybe a bit of error. I hark back to what we have set up in the department to assist, as far as we can, each individual school with any problems it might have.

Ms McRae mentioned the equity fund - I will come back to that shortly - and also flexible support and understanding that the variations are not necessarily permanent. I think that is an important point. I hope that what we have set up will provide that flexible support and that understanding of the fact that there are variations between schools. I was pleased to hear Ms McRae say that she certainly would not see that as being permanent.

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