Page 3783 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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Mrs Dunne: They were not just closed.
MS GALLAGHER: Well, let us use the word “suspended”, perhaps, but they were. This way, they are in the Education Act. There are six months to talk about it. The Liberal government did not give people six months to talk about it—it was just an arbitrary closure—yet you talk about commitment to consultation! For the first time, here we are giving people six months to discuss the future of their preschool. Never since self-government has any government invested in preschools like this government has.
This government addressed insurance issues in the preschool sector. We funded consumables so that fundraisers and parent committees did not have to fundraise for toilet paper, which is what they have had to do in the past. We extended the hours, because that is what parents said they wanted; they wanted full days at preschool because otherwise preschool was becoming archaic and did not fit into working people’s lives. We invested $10.4 million into preschools so that our youngest kids attending non-compulsory education could have access to a further 12 hours per week of preschool so that it did fit in with working people’s lives and we could encourage more four-year-olds into the preschool system, because the numbers were declining. Those numbers are still declining but we want the percentage of four-year-olds who attend preschools to keep increasing even though the cohort is declining. Never before has any government invested in preschool education to that level—$10.4 million.
We have extended Koori preschools across town. We have got indigenous three and four-year-olds attending non-compulsory education in a setting that suits those families’ needs. No other government has done that. Here we are, investing.
This is not about savings. As others have said, 22 preschools: it does not offer a great deal of savings. We have invested millions into the preschool system—to modernise it, to make it accessible to parents, to make it a legitimate option for parents. But part of the conversation we have to have is: can we maintain 80 preschools across the ACT, with the level of service that is required, when the cohort is declining and the demographic shifts are occurring?
We have probably close to 200 kids out at Amaroo needing preschool education. At the beginning of the year in one preschool there was not one enrolment; there was an empty preschool, needing to be staffed, that did not have an enrolment at the end of last year and that we would have had to keep open because that is the way the things go at the moment: we need to consult around changes to the preschool system. This is the reality: some preschools have four kids, some have two kids, some have no kids, some have 200. So you cannot sit here and honestly say that we do not need to have a look at preschools—where they are, where they are located
Mrs Dunne: No-one said that. No-one has said that.
Mr Pratt: In fact, we are saying you should take a closer look.
MS GALLAGHER: That is exactly what we are doing. We have gone out and said, “Here are 22 preschools that we think should shut. What is your view on it? Come and
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