Page 2799 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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Minister, Ms Gallagher, defending the merits of these closures and justifying their position that education in the ACT needs a major overhaul, and needs it now.
I do not think many people doubt that. In fact, I recall at the famous breakfast we had at the National Press Club getting a question about this, and being asked what we would do about it. My first view, and it is the same view I have from that morning after the budget and tonight, is that the territory has to tackle the drift of people out of its system into both the Catholic and the private schools systems.
I will get to the point quite quickly here because of the late hour, but when you focus on this issue, Dr Bruniges from the department, when tackled on the issue of drift, said:
We can’t put a definite figure on that because parents will make different decisions at different points about appropriate transition programs and we need to gauge that.
But in the one key area where some supporting statistics and more thorough research would be very helpful in guiding the ACT’s decisions on education policy—that is, explaining why children and families are leaving the public system in droves for private schools—there appears to be nothing in place.
The minister has said on numerous occasions at meetings I have been at, in his performances on radio and in this house, “Well, I am spending all this money because I want to stop the drift. This is the big test that I am applying. This is going to change things.” But I constantly wait to hear an explanation of what is it about the ACT public schools system that has encouraged people to leave in droves and at a rate greater than in other jurisdictions. With great respect, we heard Mr Speaker say this morning that this was all due to “the marketing by the Catholic schools or the private schools”.
What a simplistic view of why people are leaving the government system. Marketing is not why people are leaving the government system. I do not claim to be some authority. I can only base my comments on my own experience. My youngest child is about to leave the government system at the end of this year, as I have said before. I went into the classroom not long ago and there were 57 kids divided by half a petition in a portable classroom in one of the most established areas of Canberra. There are kids in years 4, 5 and 6 in the one class and I am told, “This, Mr Mulcahy, is world-class education. This is up there with Singapore.”
I have never heard such bunkum. I was outraged that day. I enrolled my child at a private school next year and I got confirmation this week. I am not happy with that because there are many people in the ACT community who do not have the capacity to make those changes. And I would like to hear from the minister less rhetoric about consultation—“We are going to do this and we know what is best for you”. I would like to hear a lot more evidence that we are really going to get to the bottom of why people are leaving these schools.
I have heard people say that it is due to the lack of discipline. I am not sure I subscribe to that view. At the high school level there might be issues. I do not see that as an issue with my own child’s education. I do not hear people raise that with me personally, but I know that some of my colleagues hold that view. But it just staggers me when I look through the evidence that I have been researching over the last couple of months from
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