Page 1966 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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Our commitment to education and training from the very first of a student’s school days is reflected in yesterday’s budget which delivered more than $216 million in additional capital works. This builds on our record investment in upgrading every ACT public school and building new schools where they are most needed. Yesterday’s budget also delivered on our election commitment to ensure more students are learning or earning after year 10 by delivering funding for 70 new teachers to lower average class sizes.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if you want to keep students engaged, you need to provide education that suits their abilities and needs. That is why we are investing more than $10.5 million over four years to enhance outcomes in literacy and numeracy at all levels, to cater for students who have English as a second language and to reduce the achievement gap between students in the highest and lowest achievement bands.
Yesterday’s budget also delivered on skills training by building capacity for more post year 10 students. In particular, the budget delivered an extra $27 million in capital and recurrent funding for the CIT. Under the Labor government, CIT has flourished to become the finest institution of its type in Australia and an equal partner, an equal player, with those other renowned institutions in the ACT, the ANU and the University of Canberra.
The centrepiece of the budget for CIT is a near $10 million investment to establish a new electro-technology program at the trades skills centre at Fyshwick. This funding will provide for construction of a new state-of-the-art building for electrical trades training. The new facilities complement the $14 million new horticultural centre currently under construction at the Bruce campus and provide staff and students with access to contemporary equipment and methodologies.
ACT Labor has a very proud record of investing in education and skills. We have a proud history of making and delivering on good educational policy. This does stand in quite stark contrast to others in this place. We are looking forward. For example, we want to provide better education for students with special needs to help ensure that year 10 or 12 is not the end of their productive lives and we have established the Shaddock review to help us. We are providing $4 million for students with disabilities or those facing financial hardship in non-government schools. We continue to provide significant funding for students facing special challenges in our public system.
We also expect the Greens to live up to our parliamentary agreement and their pledge to the people of Canberra. We want to work with the Greens to do our bit to help these kids by establishing a committee inquiry into special education. It is disappointing that it appears this has been postponed yet again. Whilst the Greens may not get the whole picture, at least their intentions are good. Those opposite, however, simply do not believe in education, or public education at any rate.
We invest $350 million in public schools and the Liberals call it throwing good money after bad. We work with federal Labor to ensure that every student in every school benefits from the building the education revolution package. The Liberals refuse to back this funding and then threaten our moves to further cut red tape around
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