Page 4702 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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The bill not only meets our national obligations under the youth compact and youth attainment and transitions national partnership; it fundamentally changes how we define education in the ACT. The key is flexibility. As previous speakers have alluded, the system must be flexible to meet the needs of individual students, and, if they choose to combine their education, training and work options throughout the week that involves spending some time at a work site, some time training and some time at school, the system must support them.
The bill is also, critically, about helping young people to find their passion. I have spoken earlier in this debate about being able to ensure that for those students who have passions in particular areas that might at times be socially undesirable, such as the ability to hot-wire a car, that really should be leading to a future career in the automotive or mechanical industry. Students who enjoy tending to the school garden should think about the options that they have in the fast growing horticulture industry in this territory. It is about providing options—training, employment and schooling options—that meet the needs of a diverse range of students.
But it is also about ensuring that there are no excuses and that everyone learns. There are no excuses—not for students, not for teachers, not for parents and not for politicians or for governments. It is time for everyone in the community to stand up and take responsibility for all young people. That is why we have developed the youth commitment, where all government agencies; schools, government and non-government; training organisations; the CIT; and employers will commit to links which make sure that every student is engaged. There are problems which some students and families face. We recognise that. We will not be ignoring those problems, but they are certainly not an excuse for doing nothing, for waiting for a break or blaming others.
It is also about high expectations. We know that high expectations from schools, from teachers, from parents and from governments produce results. When a student says, “I think I want to own my own business,” but then has a second thought and says, “But I don’t think I can do it,” we need a teacher, a parent, a trainer, a responsible adult—someone—to step in and tell them that nothing is beyond their reach. The challenge is for our schools, our vocational education providers and our universities to transform universal opportunity into universal outcomes for every student.
In their contributions to this debate, The Greens and the Liberals have expressed some concerns. In response to Ms Hunter’s contribution, I acknowledge that the challenge we are setting ourselves is a difficult one. This will be hard. It will be hard to engage with all students. But I do not think it is acceptable to say that that means we should give up. I do not think it is acceptable to suggest that because it is going to be hard we should lower our expectations; that because it is going to be hard we should make excuses for failure or we should make excuses for inaction. Ultimately, this would be an admission that we might just have to give up on some students and focus our efforts on the easy cases. As education and training minister, I say that this is not good enough. I am going to stand up and take responsibility and I hope other parties in this place will join with me.
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