Page 3550 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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Nonetheless, and this is the bigger challenge that we face in our system, we are operating education off nearly 180 sites across the ACT, educating, as Mrs Dunne has indicated, about 60 per cent of the school population. The private sector is educating the other 40 per cent off 44 sites. That gives an idea of the imbalance, if you like, in terms of the infrastructure that we are maintaining.
As I indicated in question time today, we are seeking to use some of the $90 million to invest in better equipping our schools for environmental challenges that we are going to face over the coming years. It is indeed our intention that, where possible, schools should seek to reduce their environmental footprint and also their running costs through sustainable design principles. We will seek to take the lead in our community on ensuring the sustainability of our schools. We can already see some of these initiatives in action at schools across the territory.
As I have indicated, one of the reasons that the government is committed to a $90 million upgrade program is that it wants to ensure the environmental and financial sustainability of our school buildings. Mrs Dunne has indicated that she believes that improving facilities in our schools is throwing good money after bad. Is she implying that we should sit back and make no change and allow our public education system to become the residual system for those who cannot afford private education? I am not prepared, and neither is any one of my colleagues on this side of the chamber, to give up on public education in the territory.
There is a danger that without change our public education system will continue to slide into minority status. That is why the government took the difficult and clearly unpopular decision to take the 2020 proposals to the community for consultation. It is because our city has undergone demographic change that suburbs that used to be the nappy valleys are now the home of young adults entering higher education and training or employment and that in other suburbs there is more demand for aged care facilities than for primary schools.
Anyone who has lived in Canberra for any time would know that our population is ageing and that there are different demands for services across the city. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of the ACT population of primary school age decreased by about 2,600 people, or about eight per cent, from June 1996 to June 2005. Over the same period there has been a five per cent decrease in the population of high school or college age people in the ACT.
Mrs Dunne: Do you know why?
MR BARR: This is to do with demographics, Mrs Dunne. Yes, there are fewer children being born and our net immigration has not been particularly high over that period. Of course, there are regional variations within the city and the greatest increases have occurred in areas of Gungahlin and in north-west Belconnen—for example, in the suburb of Dunlop—while there have been significant decreases in the school age population in the north Tuggeranong area, for example. As I indicated, there has been about a 1,500 decrease in the high school and college age population in that last decade. There has been growth in Gungahlin and the Lanyon Valley, but decreases in north Tuggeranong and Weston Creek.
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