Page 4091 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 13 December 2006
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While some will feel the pain of these decisions, I believe that the government is acting in the best interests of our entire community in securing the future of public education in our city. I said in my inaugural speech in the Assembly that good government is about making difficult decisions in the best interests of our community, and that is what we have done today. Whilst this change process is hard, our public schools will benefit.
We are determined to promote our public education system and its strengths. With these reforms, we will rightly be able to say that our education system is the best in the world. The focus now needs to be on renewing our schools and promoting the benefits of our public education system. This begins tonight, with a media campaign to promote our public schools. The tag line “Public education: so much more to offer” will be used. The campaign will initially run for a week and will then run as students return to school next year.
I would like to thank the school communities and members of the wider community who have engaged in this process in good faith and spent time and effort in developing submissions. I applaud the passion and commitment that parents and the broader community have shown during this consultation period. I know that today’s announcements will not have made everybody happy, but these reforms and the record levels of investment will ensure that the ACT’s education system is equipped to face the challenges of the future.
I present for the information of members a paper entitled Towards 2020: the decisions. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.03): All over Canberra at the moment parents are buying school clothes and equipment for excited five-year-olds who are looking forward to starting school next year. Some of the purchases will go in Santa bags and Christmas stockings in about two weeks time. Parents are buying for kids who still think that drawstring hats are cool and that the mastering of the action of a glue stick is quite an achievement. Somewhere at the moment there is a potential chief minister getting excited about his Bob the Builder lunch box. There is a future Nobel laureate trying on pink Chuck Taylors and there is a possible prime minister picking out his first ruler. A great craftsman of the future is making a crucial decision: will it be the Buzz Lightyear or the Lisa Simpson drink bottle?
Parents know that this is a special moment. They know that they hold their children’s future in the palm of their hand and that they are sending them out onto a journey that will take them into undreamed of futures. They know that how they prepare for and undertake that journey will make a huge difference to where they end up. We should remember that, because out there amongst the children with eyes full of excitement is the kid who might never quite fit into school and who turns up dead of a drug overdose—the one who is always in trouble, who dies in a car crash, or the girl who might fall pregnant, drop out of school and never work again.
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