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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (22 August) . . Page.. 3136 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

That has not occurred in this document.

If the expertise no longer exists in the department of education to develop a proper tender document that integrates best practice and includes specifications to ensure quality outcomes, they must go back to the drawing board and work with a steering committee, and they should have done that anyway. They already should have worked with interest group stakeholders in the community. What my motion is asking is that they go back to the drawing board and work with the steering committee made up of experts, parents, carers and teachers, to develop another tender document. This consultation, as I said, should have occurred anyway.

The tender document does refer to consultation. It says:

The contractor will advise the ACT Department of Education and Community Services on the design and implementation of the health and fitness assessment program.

That does not fit into the government's own consultation criteria, I think. I would support any well thought out attempt to improve the health and wellbeing of children, but poorly designed attempts can do more harm than good. The government is handing responsibility for this important matter in our public school system to a private contractor, and has also introduced a user-pays component to access.

Where does the user-pays aspect of this tender fit into the government's claimed commitment to improving the health of all children in the schools? Where does it fit with this government's proclamations about addressing inequity and poverty in our community? How does it fit with the principles of equity that were emphasised as so important in the More than the sum of its parts report? Where do the social values and quality issues actually fit into this process?

This proposal may improve the financial health of the contractor, who will be in the unique position of being able to test the fitness of individuals and schools, give them basic results only (categories measured in age, year level and gender), then charge for more detail; and then charge them for in-servicing. What does this say about government responsibility, and even capacity, to develop an informed and effective educational response to the issue of the physical fitness and health of all children in our public schools?

The evaluation criteria are lacking in any detail regarding quality, and the specifications in annexure A simply state that this is about collecting data on the health and fitness levels of school children and students in the ACT. Such assessment would allow the progress of students to be monitored and assist in the development of specific programs designed to address the areas concerned.

I noticed that it also does note that there is no actual policy developed by the ACT department on fitness. I have to go back to this: of course, the programs that will come out of this work include in-service sessions with teachers on implementing health and fitness programs, which could be purchased from the contractor for a price, as could more detailed students reports to parents.

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