Page 3472 - Week 11 - Thursday, 15 November 2007
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which provides a full range of services from complex hospital care through to community-based services. Older Canberrans on the north side have benefited from the commissioning of the older persons inpatient unit at Calvary Hospital.
In October 2007, the ACT government extended to all holders of ACT seniors cards travel at half the adult fare on ACTION buses, including travel during peak times. In 2008 six minibuses will also provide on-demand services to seniors in our community.
Canberra’s knowledge future is the fourth strategic theme of the Canberra plan. Securing our knowledge future is a theme that has driven recent reforms to education. The government’s school renewal program featured a massive funding injection of $90 million for school upgrades, $20 million for state of the art information technology services and equipment, $45 million for an advanced primary to year 10 school in Belconnen West, $54 million for a new P-10 school in Tuggeranong and $60.7 million for a new Gungahlin college and CIT.
I acknowledge that the school renewal program has not been without its difficulties for some parents and children in our community, but it has been, and will continue to be, a program that holds the best interests of our future generations at its very core, and the achievements of our students is something in which we can all take pride. ACT students consistently perform above the national benchmarks in literacy and numeracy for years 3, 5 and 7. Last year I was delighted when our year 3 Indigenous students matched the achievements of non-Indigenous students in literacy and achieved the highest proportion above the benchmark in Australia in both literacy and numeracy. Closing the gap in Indigenous outcomes is a very high priority for the government, and education lies at the heart of this challenge.
The ACT government has an outstanding record of achievement in its support for medical research and workforce development. The ANU medical school, funded and supported by the government, has served to further increase our knowledge capital and medical workforce. In addition to its original support, the government has provided a further $12.1 million for the new school of clinical medicine and library at the Canberra Hospital, which opened last year. The medical school has also opened a campus at Calvary Hospital with financial assistance of $1.75 million from the government.
The University of Canberra has also benefited from government support, receiving $10 million to build new teaching facilities which were opened this year, and supporting infrastructure for new allied health courses in nutrition and dietetics, pharmacy and physiotherapy.
Another positive collaboration between the Australian National University and the ACT government has culminated in the opening of the ANU secondary college, an innovative college that enables academically gifted students to study courses that will contribute towards their future university qualifications.
It is often said that Canberra’s future lies in the strength of its knowledge industries. ICT is a key enabling technology for the knowledge economy, and the ICT sector is one in which the ACT has specific strengths and capabilities. The ACT government
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