Page 2545 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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really struggling and who really need some assistance to invest in their future. Perhaps it could even be extended into the primary school levels. That would be a real investment in our future.
Some of the issues that arose during the estimates process are still causing concern. I am still concerned about and not satisfied with the explanation given for the jump in indigenous literacy and numeracy indicators about the place. There was a lengthy exposition given in the estimates and some written follow-up provided. It seems to say that we all started off by one day licking our finger and raising it in the breeze to see which way it was blowing. We have been working systematically around that. There is not a strong methodology and I am concerned that we are seeing a downgrading of educational achievement by not setting consistent and higher standards for indigenous children so that they can achieve at the same rate as the rest of us.
Some of the other issues are very concerning. On the surface some of these may seem inconsequential. During the estimates process I asked on notice for the minister to provide me with a rundown of the amounts of money that were spent on consumables in a whole lot of different curriculum areas. A lot of the science courses—chemistry and biology, for instance—have a consumables budget. Art and the manual arts and home economics have very high consumable budgets. The answer I got back was: “We do not know; we would have to ask all the schools individually as that would be too difficult.” Here is a minister who really does not have a good grasp of what is going on in his department and does not care. If he cared, I do not think he would be satisfied with the answer that comes back: “It is just too difficult; we do not want to know.” What it boils down to is that no-one has a good idea of how much money is being spent to make some of these vital classes work.
I have had teachers complain to me about how small their budget is for consumables in classes. A couple of years ago I came across a home economics teacher who had $2.50 per child per class to provide ingredients for home economics. On that you would not be getting much beyond French toast and pancakes. You are not going to be able to provide enough ingredients to teach these children to cook anything on $2.50 per child per class. As a result, most of the classes did not cook anything at all; they just talked about cooking. For many children this is their first experience of cooking and learning some of the skills that may set them up to live a healthy life further down the track. At $2.50 per child per class you cannot provide a proper home economics program.
Art classes, manual art classes and woodwork classes are always strapped for resources. A senior science teacher at a government secondary college told me recently that she had $27 per student for the semester to provide for her senior chemistry classes. She was tearing her hair out because she knew that she could not provide these things. At the same time, each of those schools has lots of money in the bank, but the teachers and the parents are not seeing it being turned into consumables in the classroom. The minister does not know about it and does not care.
On the subject of what the minister does not know, or perhaps does not care, and on a very important issue relating to the safety of our children in schools, during estimates I asked the minister: “Between the financial years 2004-05 and now, how many times
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