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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2622 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
I am pleased to see the P and C say that there are fewer complaints now - action is taken by the department. I am also pleased to see that, where information is given out to parents and parents know exactly what the contributions are for, we have had, and we continue to have, a very good success rate in terms of those schools raising contributions from the parents.
MS McRAE: I have a supplementary question. Mr Speaker, you will have observed that I waited very quietly and patiently in regard to your orders, but the Minister has not answered my question. Is the Minister aware of which schools? Has he contacted those schools? He said that the department contacts schools when they are brought to his attention. I am well aware of that. I asked a very specific question. Is he aware of which schools? Have they been contacted? By way of a supplementary question, is it not a fact that these schools are putting more pressure on parents because they are not able to manage their budget allocation under the new enhanced school-based management program?
MR STEFANIAK: I would be rather surprised if that is the situation, Ms McRae. In terms of which schools they are, no, no-one has told me which schools they are yet. I note that the P and C is writing a letter - I assume the Chronicle article is correct - to several schools about that. I do not know whether at this stage it has told the department which schools. I suspect that is not the case. It certainly has not told me. But when things like that are brought to our attention, and we are told what the problem is and which school it is, we certainly take action. That has happened on occasions, Ms McRae, in the past. I refer you again to Mr Cobbold's comment that there have been fewer complaints since the policy was put out last year.
MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, my question is also to the Minister for Education, Mr Stefaniak. With reference to the previous question, if it was Mr Fahey answering the question he would say, "You do not have any school fees in Canberra anyway". But it was not; it was Mr Stefaniak. Minister, you recently published guidelines for the registration and re-registration of non-government schools. I refer to your statement in this Assembly on 18 February this year that these guidelines will place increased emphasis on education planning and the viability of schools. You emphasised the objectives of orderly planning and efficient utilisation of educational resources. You indicated that there would be an assessment of the impact of planned enrolment growth of new schools on the educational and financial viability of existing schools in both the government and non-government sectors. Minister, could you now explain to the Assembly why these objectives have not been given effect in the guidelines? Would you agree that the absence of a clearly specified process and criteria for assessing the impact of new school proposals represents a planning failure which will detract from the orderly planning of new schools and may result in detrimental effects on existing government and non-government schools? Will you assure the Assembly, Minister, that your Government remains committed to the objective of orderly planning of new schools which you so ably
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