Page 775 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 1 April 2008
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there is a statistically significant change in performance at the very top of the socioeconomic index and also at the very top of our performance index in reading. There is no doubt about that. The government will work with the public system, the Catholic system and the independent system on improving, and particularly extending, the range of gifted and talented programs that are available for those high-achieving students.
It is particularly pleasing that the government has been able to extend the range of subjects in partnership with the ANU that are available through the ANU secondary college. The government has also been able to establish a relationship with the University of Canberra for a similar early entry scheme for the University of Canberra to provide our senior secondary students with access to university-level education through years 11 and 12. That opportunity for gifted and talented students to extend their education, to get credit on their university degrees through their study at the ANU secondary college and the UC college, is an important initiative for senior secondary. But we need to look at other ways to extend these programs through our high schools and our primary school sectors. There are a number of outstanding programs already operating within the public education system, and I know there are a number of non-government schools that also seek to provide extension learning opportunities for high-achieving students.
Our goal across the entire system must be to continually aim to lift overall performance. This year, for the first time we will have the introduction of national testing across all jurisdictions. That will occur in May this year. The ACT government has taken a leading role. Last year, I issued a policy paper around national testing and the ways that we can utilise the data that we get from national testing to improve performance. But that data is available not for league tables, not to rank schools against each other, but as information for teachers to assist individual students.
If there is a clear point of ideological difference, or one of many clear points of ideological difference, between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, it is around the use of that data. We believe that data should be used to assist teachers to improve the outcomes for students. The Liberal Party, when Minister Bishop was in power only last year, was hell-bent on using that to name and shame schools. That is a clear ideological difference between those on the Labor side and those opposite.
In the time remaining to me, I must respond to Mr Smyth’s most interesting assertions around preschool education. It seems to have escaped Mr Smyth that preschool education is not compulsory and that, in fact, the increase in the number of students attending preschools is as a result of the government increasing the number of free preschool hours from 10 to 12. The cohort—
Mr Smyth: How do you know? Prove it.
MR BARR: How do I know? Because in kindergarten this year, Mr Smyth, the cohort across all schools in the ACT is in the order of about 4,100 to 4,200 students. That is when compulsory education kicks in. So we know, when we look back at births in the territory, that it ranges between 3,900 and about 4,200 or 4,300 each year. That is the cohort, and 3,772 are engaged in preschool this year. So it is heading towards 80 to 90 per cent of the cohort.
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