Page 1774 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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It sets out a vision for public education that will take a child just starting out in preschool today, and give that child a clear and coordinated path through until 2020.
Mr Speaker, Towards 2020: renewing our schools will involve a major school rationalisation program, which will start immediately and continue across the forward years. A significant number of neighbourhood schools will close, with comprehensive consultation on proposed closures starting right away.
Over four years the government will invest $90 million in significant upgrades of remaining schools. Funding for school maintenance has been boosted by $3 million a year from 2007-08—a full 25 per cent—to ensure that schools are maintained to higher standards.
As previously announced, $45 million will be invested in a new preschool to year 10 school on the site of Ginninderra District High School.
Today, I can announce that another $21 million will be spent on a new primary school and preschool in East Gungahlin, while another $1 million will be spent on a feasibility study for a joint secondary college-CIT campus in Gungahlin.
That is a massive investment of $67 million in new schools.
This budget invests an extra $20 million over four years in information technology in schools.
Mr Speaker, quality infrastructure is an essential but by no means the only element of a good school.
Quality teachers, who are supported in their profession, take quality infrastructure and turn it into a quality school.
Program breadth, which gives students choice, also makes good schools.
Mr Speaker, this budget will allow us to create schools that combine these essential elements.
The ACT has prided itself on its school-based curriculum. The capacity to tailor teaching material to the needs of a particular classroom or a particular student, is part of the essential repertoire of a good teacher.
However, curriculum development can and must make appropriate use of nationally and internationally available models and materials. Teachers should not be in the business of reinventing their profession, just refining it. And that distinction will, over time, not only produce better results for ACT students but reduce the considerable costs of our existing curriculum development system.
Mr Speaker, over the next four years, Canberrans will see exciting changes taking place right across the government school system.
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