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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2361 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

about 25 primary schools and a couple of high schools in the ACT, both in the government and non-government sector, had certificates presented to them for donating to the United Nations Interfet force basically a room almost as big as this chamber full of stationery, books and other items to assist the schools in East Timor.

As part of those proceedings, which took place in the Assembly reception area, a video involving three refugee children was shown. The video began with the worst case-a young bloke called John who, with his mother, fled from fighting in Ethiopia and was in a refugee camp in Kenya. He was hoping his father could join them but his father had stayed to defend the farm. I sadly wonder whether John's father ever made it. John spoke very good English. The people in the refugee camp had one meal a day, and that was eaten at night. The school at the refugee camp consisted of kids sitting around in the dust, with no materials, and being taught as best they could by aid workers. It was interesting to see how the kids amused themselves. They made a soccer ball from just bits and pieces of material. They were absolutely dirt poor.

The video then focussed on Cambodian refugees who lived in huts and had reasonable meals. Their school consisted of a hut, a blackboard, occasional chalk, and one teacher for about 100 kids. The situation depicted on the video is very similar to what I was told by a friend of mine, Audrey Cornish. Audrey, who used to be a teacher at Narrabundah College, teaches in Cambodia. She told me that teachers are often not paid for months on end, and often they need basic things like chalk.

The next refugee in the video was living in Denmark. This young girl went to a school that was more akin to our schools in Canberra. The only difference seemed to be that she was in a building complex where her family had to share the bathroom and the kitchen facilities with other families. But it was something approaching our standard.

I had the pleasure of hosting a very lovely lady, Nosimo Balindlela, who was education and cultural minister and is currently cultural, sport and arts minister for Eastern Cape Province. She also is a teacher. Before she was a minister she taught even during the apartheid regime in South Africa at teachers college. She was highly impressed with our schools. You, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, related to me a meeting you had at lunchtime with a visiting South African delegation of educationalists who said how impressed they were with our school system, which they indicated was the best in the country. I go to a lot of our schools in the government school system-I think I have been to them all. I go to a lot of the non-government schools and they too are excellent.

I have been comparing libraries and computers in the various schools. Whilst I note that in some of the Catholic primary schools these areas are certainly adequate, and the standard of education is very good, the number of computers and the size of the libraries is so much larger in our government primary schools. I have been hearing in recent days how good our schools are compared with not only those in the rest of Australia-I hear this from parents who come to the ACT from interstate-but also overseas. This is certainly brought home when you hear from the people from overseas. South Africa, of course, has a reasonable standard of education. It is much more primitive, of course, than ours, but still much better than some of those other areas that I have mentioned. I think we need to pause and realise how lucky we really are in this country.

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