Page 2550 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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fear that the focus on early childhood education as integration into primary schools is a way of doing that.
Do not forget that one of the schools that was leading the ACT in the integration of preschools with local primary schools was Tharwa, but it was not convenient to have it happening there. We now have a preschool—thank God we have a preschool—but it is stuck alone in a little part of an empty and sad heritage school building. While I believe that there is a role for standalone preschools—and I am not convinced that integrating them into primary schools, in particular, large primary schools is by definition a good idea—I believe that there is something to gain for our whole community if parents come together through the education of our kids.
The role of local schools is really important for the coherence of our community. They could and should be part of reinvigorated local centres that work to promote better connectedness, greater physical fitness and so on. Of course, I am pleased that Gungahlin secondary college and the CIT campus are finally coming on stream. I know that the citizens of Gungahlin often feel that they live in another country from the rest of Canberra because they have had to battle years of inadequate broadband, narrow streets, long waits for shops and services, and no swimming pool or other recreational facilities. At least they will now get a CIT campus and a college, and I hope that Tuggeranong will also get this.
I am concerned that the new curriculum framework, which is to be finalised and implemented next year, has not had the warranted attention. The fact that one of the key learning areas, languages other than English, appears to have been abandoned in the draft curriculum has barely been acknowledged. In the context of an intercultural society able to engage with an internationally focused world, that is not a good sign. I also think that the national context is starting to cast a shadow over the ACT’s public education system. There is now a significant threat of a national standardised curriculum and testing, and my fear is that the kids at the extremes of capacity and achievement will miss out if that happens.
There are real issues with secondary education in Australia and I do not see in this budget any vision, project designed or intention to address it. While non-government education, through increased federal funding, is able selectively to provide an environment for some students, the broad issues are not being addressed. There is no strategy for addressing or even considering the drift away from government schools or, more particularly, any investment in programs that address the specific needs of young people in danger of exclusion from our educational system.
New buildings and equipment and gyms are attractive, but they will go only so far in imaginatively responding to those challenges. It certainly is not the buildings that make Narrabundah college such a sought after school. The number of teachers has been cut in ACT schools on the basis of benchmarking against other states. I fear that we will always be chasing other states in a race to the bottom if we adopt this approach when we could be, and were, leading the way to the top.
Given that the ACT government is flush with funds this year, I urge the education department to make a bid for investment in some pilot schemes to explore a range of ways to engage young people in the community around them. I welcome the promise
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