Page 4692 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 October 2010
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Mr Barr: It did, Meredith. It did.
MS HUNTER: Okay, I acknowledge that the minister has indicated that they were looked at. But I think that these are areas that very much need to be explored to find the cuts before we go to those sorts of supports and resources and teachers for those students who very much need our support to ensure that they can have the same sort of life opportunities that other children have.
There are a couple of other issues I want to raise. It was, in fact, the Greens that put into the ALP-Greens agreement that during the life of this Assembly, the Seventh Assembly, there be two inquiries around the achievement gap in education and around disability education in the ACT. The achievement gap inquiry has been undertaken. I have said that there is an increasing number of students with disabilities in our system. There also are students who are very much lagging behind their counterparts for a range of other reasons, usually related to coming from very poor households. That achievement gap inquiry has been tabled, and we look forward to seeing the important supports that are put in place to ensure, as I said, that those students can reach their potential.
The disability inquiry, I understand, will be reporting shortly. I very much hope that the government will seriously consider the recommendations that will be put forward, no doubt, by that committee. That was a process that very much engaged with parents, teachers and whole school communities around the needs, the gaps, the issues that need to be addressed. That is why I ask the government to seriously consider and look at in future budgets ensuring that ongoing, increasing and enhanced resources are provided for students with disability.
I would also like to pick up the point that there is an increasing number of students with disability coming into our system, and there is a very broad range of disabilities as well. Again, it is important that all of those students and their needs are taken into account and addressed by particular programs, specialist teachers, supports and so forth.
I would like to relate a story that I experienced going to visit one of our special needs schools here in the ACT. It picks up on a point that I think Mr Doszpot or Mrs Dunne made about the seeming lack of coordination between Therapy ACT and what is going on in the schools. When I visited the school, there was a young boy who was very excited. He had a communication device—this is a young boy who could not communicate—and that communication device he had got from a therapist through Therapy ACT, and he was very excited about showing it and bringing it out at school.
He showed me the device, but the issue, though, was that his teacher and the aides in the classroom had not been contacted and did not know how to use this device. So it was all very well for the young boy to have it, but there was no coordination about how those teachers and aides in the classroom who were assisting him were taught how to use it to ensure that it could be used to its fullest potential. I think there are real questions around the coordination between Therapy ACT, the department of education and the teachers in the classroom. We have good services there; it really is
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