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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1332 ..

mathematics or science, might actually limit schools that want to also segregate other classes. I, in year 9, partook in a girls-only PE class. That was something set up in my school, to support young women who felt that they were not able to get the full sporting education they needed in the same class as boys.

I am also particularly concerned about part 2 of Mr Pratt’s amendment, which refers to a government school being able to, either generally or for a particular educational level or subject, give disadvantaged and gifted students additional education programs. The thing that I am concerned about is the definition of disadvantage that Mr Pratt has put here. He is prescribing that we can support students who are likely to end their school education early or gifted students but we are not prescribing that we need to support students living with disabilities who may also have the need to access additional educational programs.

I believe that schools, at a time, can actually separate male and female students for particular classes, if they so choose, but prescribing it in legislation and prescribing what subjects that might cover is quite unnecessary. Again, I raise the concern that students with disabilities seem to have been completely left out of the Liberals’ thinking in relation to this matter.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (6.24): The government will not be supporting this amendment. I think that Mr Pratt’s comments are very relevant in that the Education Bill is not going to be a document containing Liberal policy announcements. I suggest, particularly based on the reception those policy announcements have received—they have largely been slammed—that that provides another reason not to have this accepted into the bill through this process.

As Ms Dundas says, a school at the moment can determine the make-up of a class, depending on the needs of the students within that school, and that is done in consultation with the school community and the school board. Again, in light of all the research that has been done around the gender and educational needs of different students, what comes out—and this is something that Mr Pratt just really never accepts—is that the real issue is the quality of the teaching and learning. It is not about boys or girls. Good teaching for boys is good teaching for girls.

Having said that, if single sex classes were determined to be appropriate to a school aside from—as Ms Dundas says—English, maths and science, or incorporating English, maths, and science, that option is currently available to the school community. This bill should not just be used to lodge Liberal policy announcements in the lead-up to the election.

MS TUCKER (6.26): This amendment gives schools the capacity to do what they already can do here in the ACT. The only real purpose in inserting it into this legislation is that it might be an encouragement for those people who like to argue that there needs to be boys-only schools or classes in the interest of an ill-defined notion of equity. The point about what we describe as gifted and talented and disadvantaged students is that they need, as we all do to some extent, individual attention.

Blanket projects such as English for boys, or remedial reading for kids in trouble, are not going to deliver the goods. Interestingly, there is substantial evidence now that music,

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