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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4196 ..

the education system altogether because they cannot afford to participate in it any longer. So I call for members’ support, not only for this motion but also for young people in our community who need our support and who would benefit from a motion such as this being enacted in future school years.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children, Youth and Family Support, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (6.15): The government is happy to support this motion, with an amendment. I move:

Omit paragraph (2), substitute:

“(2) calls on the ACT Government to investigate the need to provide optional after-school job training to “at risk” year 9 students so they are equipped to take up part-time employment outside school hours and consider this proposal as part of the 2005-2006 budget considerations.”.

I will speak to both the motion and the amendment. I think this is a worthy motion; it’s worthy of members’ support. There are challenges for all of us in terms of defining and identifying programs for young people who might be at risk of not completing their education or at risk of getting involved in drugs or alcohol abuse. It is something, I think, that presents a challenge and I think we constantly need to ask young people what sort of program they would like.

There are a number of programs, as Ms Dundas has alluded to, that are currently being run—school-based new apprenticeships; student pathway plans; some of the programs like SPICE, which is run by Volunteering ACT, which has got ongoing funding now and which is targeting those students who are in years 7 to 10 and who are looking like they might fall out of the school system. I think, in the first semester of this year, 90 students participated in SPICE; it’s a very good program. BISEP and GRAPES are, again, partnership programs with the MBA and the Construction Industry Training Council, targeting 12-week certificate one programs for the building and construction industry. Again, that’s targeted at year 10 students who are looking like they might not end up with a year 10 certificate or finishing the year. There are a number of programs.

I agree that there’s more that can be done. The only concern that I had with this motion was that some of the reading that I had done actually had said that some young people who are at risk of not completing their education are at risk of not completing it because they are working to support their families and engaging in part-time work. There was an Australian Council for Education Research report released in 1999 which talked about the effects of part-time work on school students and did touch on students at risk, but the study did show that students believed their part-time work did assist them to get a job later on and was useful. But there was some caution in that about part-time work and how much part-time work. The importance that it plays in those years needs to be balanced by the importance of completing an education program. I think we do need to acknowledge that and find that balance.

The other concern I had was that the government should not just accept that this proposal is a good one, which it may well turn out to be, and put it in place for the beginning of 2005. I can’t say that I have been lobbied very strongly to provide this sort of program—and that is not to say that people don’t want it—but when I look back at submissions for budget initiatives and meetings I have had with the youth sector, the minister’s youth council and young people, in the formulation of the young person’s plan it didn’t come

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