Page 2549 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.50): While I remember it, I just want to follow up Mrs Dunne’s conversation about independent schools. Members will remember the legislation that went through in the last sitting of last year which ruled out the potential for Tharwa school to become a campus for any other non-government school. From time to time I receive emails and information from blue gum school, a small, independent school. It is not a religious school but it offers an alternative kind of education that is not available in the public system.
This might be an area in which Mr Hargreaves’ department is working for the ends of the party or whatever, but some nasty things have been done to that school in its search for accommodation. So there is something in what Mrs Dunne said. I think the government should seriously discuss those issues. The people who go to blue gum school are not the elite of this town; they are looking for a genuine alternative—something that is not really available in the public system. We must either make everything available in the public system or accept that people will go outside for it.
Some disastrous decisions to close viable schools have undermined community fabric in places such as Cook, which is still fighting to save its school, Hall, Tharwa, Flynn, Macarthur and Kambah. These closures are still impacting on the lives of kids and their parents across Canberra. Basically, many people feel defeated. Flynn is still fighting—I am really pleased about that—and so is Cook. Tharwa feels quite disillusioned and we do not hear much from Hall.
The raw point is that many communities that are fighting to keep their schools and communities alive were led to believe that unsustainable economics led to the closure of their schools. But now that the government has found itself awash with money those same people must be wondering why they should believe any of the numbers that this government is throwing around. Was the real driver some kind of half-baked national benchmarking exercise that did not take into account social or educational costs and benefits?
I am confident that the thin analysis that led to these destructive decisions is hidden in the so-called functional review, and we know that that has been consecrated as cabinet-in-confidence. This year’s budget did not address any of the problems that were created by the 2020 strategy, and the accompanying staff cuts in schools and in the department. More to the point, it does not appear to be pursuing a considered approach to addressing broader issues of education other than by investing in some new facilities.
It does not address the low morale of teachers. We must remember that the closure of schools was accompanied also by an EBA in which teachers traded off some of the things that made teaching in some cases not pleasant but just bearable. Anecdotally, I am hearing stories about teachers voting with their feet and leaving the public system. I do not think we can afford to let that happen.
ICT is important to the provision of contemporary education, so I welcome this government’s investment in it. The ACT leads Australia in the provision of preschool education and we must continue to do so. I am afraid that a benchmarking exercise might see us moving back in the other direction, and I hope that we do not go there. I
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