Page 2836 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 24 June 2009
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developments in education policy. It raises some important questions and, as Ms Hunter has indicated, calls on me to explain the safeguards that will be in place around the release of school-related information.
I have to say from the outset that I am pleased that Ms Hunter does not go as far as some and completely reject this important reform agenda. She is refreshingly looking at the big picture and she is recognising that transparency in education is important. So I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue today.
Why do I say this? I say it because education is a powerful force for change. Education changes our economy and our nation. Education changes lives, and that is why we all want the best possible education for ACT students. We want this generation of students to do better than we did. We want them to find their passion, we want them to be confident and achieve their full potential. That is why parents are eager for more information. When I meet parents, there is only one question they really want me to answer: how can they choose the best school for their child?
As minister, it is not good enough for me not to have a decent answer to that question. It is bad enough if I do not know, but it is worse still if I know but I cannot say. Parents want to know how their son or daughter is tracking at school. They want to know whether a school excels in history or maths and they want to know the areas where a school needs to improve. We can always do better, try harder and achieve more. But first we need to know how our schools and our students are tracking. Before education can be this great force for change, we need to know what needs changing in education.
Ms Hunter’s motion notes a recent decision of the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment and Youth Affairs to make our education system more transparent and accountable. Let me reiterate from the outset that I oppose simplistic league tables. League tables are not part of the reform agenda. Of course, we all know that results currently published in ACT school annual reports and information currently available under ACT freedom of information laws can already be used by our local media to derive league tables, if that is what someone wanted to do. Frankly, the league table obsession, for and against, is a massive distraction.
What we are doing is calling on us to move beyond this false debate. We are looking at practical measures: firstly, the privacy of individual students must be protected. The principles and protocols for reporting on schooling in Australia place a very strong emphasis on this. The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, or ACARA—another new acronym for us all to know—will be supported to prevent the identification of individual students and to promote the contextualised and meaningful use of data by any third parties.
Secondly, reporting will be in the broad public interest. It will balance the community’s right to know with the need to avoid misuse and misinterpretation of information. Reporting will be based on data that is valid and reliable. ACARA will work actively with third parties and explain the published information.
Thirdly, reporting will be detailed enough to enable accurate interpretation and understanding of the data. Simply, we here in the territory, the federal government
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