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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1493 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Across our school sectors the vast majority of staff expressed a high level of general satisfaction with their job. This is not a government interpretation; it is actually the feedback we are getting from staff. Maybe Mr Berry and his colleagues would want us to believe that all government teachers are downtrodden and oppressed, but the reality is obviously somewhat a little different.

Here are some other important aspects of this development report that I would share with members: parents indicated their children enjoy learning at school; parents, teachers and administration staff believe their school is well managed; schools are seen as safe and friendly places by parents, teachers and administration staff; and there is a growing confidence in the use of computers by teaching and administrative staff, even if the report acknowledges there is room for greater integration of computers in the classroom by both students and teachers. Another heartening aspect of this report is the encouragement of students to participate in physical activity in school, and that students generally greatly enjoy that participation.

There are challenges presented in this report. This report provides some valuable feedback to government on areas that need further attention. For one, there is an obvious desire among respondents for more effective communication between schools, parents and staff. This included communication between the school board and the wider school community, teacher liaison with parents, communication between individual staff and with school management.

This report also highlighted that students want greater opportunities to participate in school decision making. And while that may not be terribly surprising, it is nonetheless an important concern to my department to consider in future formulation of curricula.

What happens to the report from here? Far from gathering dust, I know this report will provide important direction for policy makers-while the schools themselves will interpret their own data, and also implement reforms as they see fit within their schools. Schools, through their school development plan, will be identifying specific strategies to address the issues or areas for development. In addition, the central office of my department has in place a number of strategies to address these issues.

The government's affirming the high school years initiative is providing the impetus for change in high schools to improve the learning outcomes for students in years 7 to 10. A wide range of projects and initiatives are being developed and progressed at the individual school level, and as joint initiatives between schools and central office. All in all, this is a very good report. And so one could be rather amazed that there were actually critics of it.

Before I conclude, it is important to directly address some of the political opposition that surfaced very quickly after the release of this report. Some of those opposite made what I would regard as somewhat ridiculous and knee-jerk claims that this report is actually a piece of government propaganda. It is typical of a negative and whingeing opposition that they dismiss any report favourable to government as "propaganda". And it would seem that Mr Berry has two standard media grabs: if the report is negative, it is embarrassing to government, and if it is positive, it is government propaganda. I do not

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