Page 825 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 2 April 2008
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Mr Seselja: It doesn’t.
MR BARR: So it does not have the support of the opposition? You are just not opposing it? Here we go—flip-flop! Between 10.30 and now the opposition has changed its position on the west Belconnen school.
It is crucial that we continue this important infrastructure renewal, but it is important also that we prioritise from it because nothing is more important in our public education system than quality. The government’s objective is to ensure that our public system is competitive with the non-government sector. There has been a range of debate around how we can address the drift. Some advocates of public education are suggesting that there be no further growth in non-government schools. No further growth in non-government schools is what is proposed to the government.
It is interesting to note that the vast majority of the drift that occurred between 2007 and 2008 is as a result of two expansions in the non-government sector. Radford College opened its early childhood programs. They now have 44 students in kindergarten, 44 in year 1, 44 in year 2 and 48 in year 3. I understand that more than half of those students were previously in public schools.
You then look at the growth of the Burgmann School and its year 11 and 12 program. More than 100 of the 150 students who were in public education last year have now moved into Burgmann’s program in Gungahlin. The expansion of two independent schools has largely accounted for two-thirds to three-quarters of the drift away from public education this year. It is also interesting to note that in this year’s figures the Catholic systemic system also lost 0.4 per cent of their enrolments. We have seen a drift away from public and the Catholic system towards independent schools, largely as a result of increased capacity in the independent sector.
The key thing is to ensure that the public education system can compete effectively. That means providing the necessary resources and investment into our public education system. We know the position of the Liberals on this, and that is to throw good money after bad. For the opposition to suggest that they have anything at all to offer the public education system is a joke. Public education communities know that. They know that the government had to make difficult decisions in 2006, with the associated trauma that went with that. But for the Liberal Party to suggest, two years into a four-year program, that we should put a halt to all of that—belying the fact that the school-age population is continuing to decline and belying the fact that families and students have moved on and are now well settled into their new schools—and throw precious education resources back into reopening empty buildings where there is not a student population to support them is very, very poor public policy. It is very poor on equity grounds as well.
Another fundamental issue that we need to address in terms of our public education system is how we share the resources that are available. Under the former model, some schools and some students got twice as much public money devoted to their education as other students elsewhere in the system. So if you believe in equity, if you believe in targeting resources to where they are most needed, then you simply could not justify spending $19,000 per student on education at Tharwa primary against a
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