Page 1203 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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education classes into indoor facilities. They do as a matter of course through the Canberra winter, generally speaking.
Mr Stefaniak: They are not playing Aussie rules, rugby league and rugby union in there.
MR SPEAKER: I warn the Leader of the Opposition.
MR BARR: That is true, Mr Stefaniak, but the issue is one that this jurisdiction and virtually every other jurisdiction in Australia, except perhaps the Northern Territory, is facing. Severe water restrictions will have an impact on sporting facilities. What we learned—as Mr Smyth would understand, as he did attend for the full day the forum that Sue Campbell and Steve Grainger spoke at—is that these issues are confronted, perhaps in slightly different circumstances, in the UK, whereby their fields are waterlogged and useless for six months of the year, but they adopt different techniques. They look at different ways of delivering physical education within schools. We will have to be innovative. I have said that from the outset.
One clear thing that we do need to do is to continue to provide first-class gymnasiums for our schools and indoor sporting facilities, playground upgrades—all of the things that come as part of the reform process of last year. Had we not undertaken that, Mr Smyth, we would not be in a position to respond to these issues. That means upgrading playgrounds within schools. It means upgrading the available synthetic, concrete or other surfaces so that some sporting activity can take place, be it basketball or netball. There is a range of sporting activities that can occur outside of a playing field. We will have to conduct more physical education of that variety than—unfortunately, Mr Stefaniak—we will be able to of rugby and AFL, for example. That is unfortunate. We would all like it to rain.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Direct your comments through the chair, please.
MR BARR: I am sure there is tripartite support, Mr Speaker, for there to be some rain and for us not to have to face these issues, but we will work within the public school system and with non-government schools. I had a long discussion about physical education in non-government schools with the Non-Government Schools Education Council only about 10 days ago. We discussed the new curriculum framework and how we can improve the quality of physical education in our schools, and that is across the board—public and private. We need to see greater emphasis on quality in physical education.
The biggest challenge, I think, is around specialist physical education teachers. That is where we face the biggest challenge. We have difficulties in some areas, particularly the primary school sector, in attracting qualified physical education teachers. We need to address that through the University of Canberra, through our teacher training programs. But, where schools are too small to have within their own staffing arrangements a specialist PE teacher, we also need to look at the possibility of clustering, of schools sharing a fully qualified physical education teacher. I think we need to take some steps to revitalise school sport.
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