Page 1850 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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This report has identified some of the key strategies that are required in responding to the achievement gap. These include:
• Maximising opportunities for early childhood development and intervention;
• Increasing the opportunities for parental involvement, including by enhancing the communications and skills within school communities;
• Introducing and supporting a framework for the development of quality teaching practices within the teaching community;
• Ensuring the quality of schools so that teaching professionals have the resources and support to provide quality education; and
• Addressing the need for equitable funding by advocating for equitable funding models and providing school communities with the resources to meet identifiable need.
I will read a couple of the other things from the report. Again I go to a group I mentioned earlier, students coming from non-English-speaking backgrounds, in particular, refugee groups. This was again a consistent group that came up, along with Indigenous students. We heard from Galilee. They noted that they are increasingly offering education services to students from refugee backgrounds. Obviously, they have these, because Galilee provide support or education to students who come from those disadvantaged backgrounds and require greater assistance. They noted that, as well as students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous students, they were seeing increasing numbers of these students.
Also, we heard from teachers that particularly provide services to non-English-speaking students. They were again noting that they are seeing an increase in the number of these students and also noting the increasing complexity and needs that the students have. This is something that we need to focus on much more here in the ACT, because we have a number of refugees in our community. It is extremely important that we are providing them with the same opportunities that other students have.
I will refer to some of the recommendations which it is important to highlight in the report, which pick up on some of the issues I have already raised. Recommendation 2 says:
… that the ACT Government ensure that teachers are aware and able to access expert advice and services to support them in adapting their pedagogical practice to suit the different educational needs of their students.
This again picks up on that complexity of students that teachers are finding they are now having to teach in the school system.
One of the things which we did not address to a great degree in this report, because there is a separate inquiry happening, is the needs of students with a disability. That is currently underway. This did come up in evidence as being a particular group in need, but that will be addressed fully in the other committee report.
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