Page 1189 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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90 students, but a large proportion of those were attending Hall, coming from New South Wales to the ACT and attending Hall, and have subsequently moved to a New South Wales school.
Also, a proportion of the students among that 90 were in year 6 at a school that closed and moved on to another high school outside the ACT government system. We are unable to track whether some of those have gone to New South Wales high schools or to non-government schools, but they certainly have not enrolled in an ACT government high school. There is a gap between our primary school and high school enrolments, but it was expected that a proportion of the students who finished year 6 in a government primary school would not go on to a government high school. I am very pleased to advise that about 85 to 90 per cent of the students who were in a school that closed at the end of last year have re-enrolled in another ACT government school.
MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. What surveys and other studies are you doing to determine the effect of Towards 2020 on decreasing enrolments, taking into account that we have seen in the last census a decrease in enrolments across the board, part of which can be attributed to Towards 2020?
MR BARR: Mrs Dunne is factually incorrect with the statement she has made. The Towards 2020 process had only a very minor impact on what has been a long-run trend. In fact, the enrolment shift from government to non-government was larger in four of the last five years than it was as a result of changes that were made at the end of last year. So the fundamental premise of Mrs Dunne’s question is wrong. It is a continuing pattern, which I think people have observed.
I have said from the outset that the changes the government has made have involved a significant investment in education—the largest ever in the history of self-government. You guys did nothing when you were in government five or six years ago. You sat and watched this and did nothing about it—absolutely nothing.
Mr Stefaniak: We did a wonderful job. We maintained it in real terms despite your $344.8 million deficit.
MR BARR: What I have said is that this process would not—
Mr Stefaniak: What you left us with—
MR SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Stanhope: Your first deficit, Bill.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, order!
MR BARR: I said—and I have been consistent throughout this process—that there was no way that in one year we were going to turn around a decade or longer worth of drift from government to non-government schools.
Mr Stefaniak: You accelerated it.
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