Page 4098 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 13 December 2006
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I want to go back to some things that we need to remember here. Before the 2020 process we had the 2010 process. That was a process that looked a lot healthier because it had a longer time frame. Not only did it have the idea of improving public education as its objective but this was also its subtext. I think the department has done some good things with this 2020 strategy. They have. I am going to give credit where it is due.
Mr Barr: I like that.
DR FOSKEY: It is in Hansard, actually. We could have had a process the community could have worked with which could have been owned by all the players. I go back and remind this minister of the Victorian process. They are facing similar problems of changed demography and loss of students to the private system. But that was a process that went to the communities and said, “If you had to make changes and you had to reduce your spending, what would you do?”
In a way, the government did that and school communities on their own in an isolated group worked together to do that. They have suggested the cost savings, the innovations. It worked for some but it did not work for others. Basically they were set against each other, instead of working together to look at, say, what would have been good in south-east Belconnen and what would have been good in north-west Belconnen, and how we could have developed education in Tuggeranong. If we had asked those kinds of questions and started from there, we might have had something that was really going to work. As it is, the government is definitely going to be doing a big patch-up job for the next year.
We are hoping that things will be looking pretty good by the next election. My advice to schools is: do not give up; there is another election; some schools will still be open by then. For others, hopefully the buildings will still be available. If a school is working it is worth fighting for, no matter how big it is and no matter how many active parents there are.
I think the ACT has been well served by its public system. I certainly would never have gone anywhere else for my children. I am proud of the way they have come out of the system. I hope this generation that is going to be affected by these closures also has the opportunity to come out with good outcomes.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra–Leader of the Opposition) (4.33): At last we know what the government is doing in relation to this. I start by saying that the big problem all along was the way it was done. Thirty-nine schools were fingered and then there was consultation. There was a huge amount of angst in the community. There will still be a huge amount of angst, and there is a huge amount of disruption, despite what the minister says, in terms of arrangements for next year, simply because of the timing of all of this: right at the end of the school year. It could all have been done very differently.
If the government was intent on closing schools it should have gone through an open consultative process. It should have had discussions with schools, assessed, used proper data and taken the school communities into its confidence before it made any
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