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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2991 ..

Many proposals have been put to the ACT Government to address these problems. It is very disappointing that, after three years, the Government has failed to act in any significant manner. Some initiatives have been taken in the past, such as the High School Development Program, but the funding devoted to them has been entirely inadequate to date and amounts only to a token effort.

These are very strong complaints from the people whom this minister and this government claim they represent more than anybody else. This minister and this government talk at length about how important government schooling is. As a consumer of government schooling, I would agree with them wholeheartedly. But when the people at the coalface—the parents who are involved in the community to the extent of going along to parents and citizens association meetings—are writing such scathing criticism of this government it is time that we, as a community, took serious note of it. We should start to wonder why, when we are spending in excess of $400 million on education—most of which is aimed at the government sector—there can be so much discontent in the community they are set to serve.

MS DUNDAS (12.14): In the lead-up to the 2004-05 budget’s being brought down the government was urged to commit extra funding to learning assistance and reading recovery teachers, extra welfare support staff and parent involvement programs, to help close the gap between our outstanding students and our struggling students. As I have said previously in this place, it was disappointing that none of these proposals was supported.

This Assembly supported a motion I moved calling for the establishment of a fund to cover the costs of excursions, camps and subject levies for kids who are missing out due to poverty. This proposal, whilst supported by the government, was not funded. It is now up to the schools to find the funds in their budgets. Whilst that is certainly better than nothing, I hope it does not mean that low income students miss out on school activities, or that other areas of those already stretched school budgets suffer.

Schools received extra funding in the area of information technology but it will be interesting to see whether or not this spending will make a significant difference in the range of educational outcomes among our ACT public school students which should, I believe, be the government’s first priority. Whilst there was some support for students with learning disabilities, which I talked about under the disability line, I think it is important that Therapy ACT and the Department of Education and Training come together to ensure that, in the development of the individual learning plans for students with disabilities, we are working in a holistic way to get the best outcomes for those children.

I thank the minister for the ongoing provision of information in relation to students who need to access individual learning plans and information as to how they are being implemented across the territory. I was hearing stories that students were not having their ILPs completed because of ongoing issues about what would be involved in their ILPs. I believe that those issues are now being worked through, following many discussions between parents and teachers and those involved in the training and educational needs of these young people.

We also need to be looking not just at students with disabilities but also at students with other sorts of learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and the maths based dyslexia, which

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