Page 2574 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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The reality is that the ACT population is ageing and, as a result, educational and community needs have changed in many suburbs. Families are also making decisions about where their children will attend school based on more than the distance from their homes. For this reason, the government needs to put schools in locations where the children are and where the community wants to access them.
The ACT education system costs, on average, 20 per cent more than in other states due in part to the fact that we have a number of small schools and preschools, and in many of these the cost of educating a student is above the ACT average and rising each year. This government is not prepared to take the opposition’s “do nothing, head in the sand” approach to education provision in our city. Spending on education accounts for one in every four ratepayer dollars and we think that is a worthy investment. Education is an important foundation for our community and for the future of our society but we need to make sure that resources are being appropriately allocated. The government is proposing to rationalise the number of schools to ensure that all students, now and into the future, can receive the best possible education programs in contemporary facilities.
I do not take the closure of any school lightly, but our students deserve the opportunity to attend the best schools, not just in growing suburbs but in established areas as well. This requires constant upgrades and improvements to our infrastructure that simply cannot occur without other changes in our system. The Towards 2020 proposal will have the effect of removing over 10,000 empty desks from our school system and will ensure that the community receives value for their education dollar. This proposal will make immediate and far-reaching improvements to our education system. The choices we make today will secure a sustainable education system into the future. The government is consulting with the Canberra community on its proposals for a sustainable education system. We have embarked on a comprehensive process of seeking views through a series of consultation meetings and individual meetings with government members and officers of the Department of Education and Training via a process of formal submissions and proposals on the future of our education system.
At the end of this extensive consultation process the government will consider all the feedback and submissions. We will be willing to make the hard decisions and take the necessary action to ensure the continuation of our high quality education system. I call on the opposition to stop these pointless delaying tactics, to remove their heads from the sand and to engage in taking positive action for the sake of our community’s future. That means being prepared to engage in a debate about education models and about the provision of education within regions.
It is with considerable concern that I note the continued misrepresentation of a proposal to have some year 7 to 12 high schools in our system. This is not—I repeat: this is not—an attempt to move away from the college system. It is simply putting forward a proposal that we might have some alternative models in our system. I note that in the private sector virtually every secondary school is a 7 to 12 school. Daramalan, Merici, St Edmund’s and Canberra Grammar are all 7 to 12 models. It is not something that is completely unheard of in educational terms.
One of the issues that has come forward, and one of the reasons why there is a drift out of the public system, is that we do not offer that model. In my view, our public education
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