Page 4834 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 October 2010
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planning for the Franklin early childhood school and Bonner primary school—new schools where they are needed most.
As I mentioned earlier, we must encourage healthy living and active PE programs in our schools. I have the unique honour of being Australia’s only minister for education and minister for sport. It is a pleasure to report today on the completion of an important piece of work at the Erindale leisure centre. This investment has added two new swimming lanes to the pool and upgraded the gymnasium. And $750,000 has been invested in the Turner school hydrotherapy pool. Solar panels will reduce the heating costs at the Turner school, and students with special needs will benefit from the reconfigured change rooms and new handrails as part of this important capital works program.
I can also advise that new gymnasiums have been constructed at Stromlo and Belconnen high schools—an investment of $3.5 million for each school. These gyms are open for community use, and I know that a large number of sporting groups are already clamouring to use these outstanding facilities. They are fantastic additions to those high schools and now mean that every single ACT public high school has a separate gymnasium and hall.
Whilst we focus on the new buildings, we should not forget the need for behind-the-scenes refurbishments at schools. A huge amount of work has gone on in this area. Stage 1 of the stormwater and sewer pipe replacement programs has been completed. The roof access safety program has also been completed. Major refurbishment work has occurred at Narrabundah college, Telopea Park school, Canberra high school and Alfred Deakin high school.
We have started work on the virtual learning environments in our eight pilot schools. The ACT government’s investment in ICT infrastructure in the last four years has meant that ACT schools will have some of the fastest internet connections in the country. It is worth observing that our public school ICT network, with its one-gigabit bandwidth, is 10 times faster than what is proposed under the initial stages of the national broadband network. And it is in place now in ACT schools because of this government’s investment back in 2006-07. We have that network in place now, and it is a massive advantage for ACT schools.
In 2009-10 we achieved the largest investment in school infrastructure in the history of the Australian Capital Territory. I am pleased to advise that this financial year we are doing it all again. I table the following paper:
ACT Department of Education and Training—Report on Capital Works Expenditure 2009-10.
I take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in this very impressive achievement. It has not always been easy turning every school in the Australian Capital Territory into a construction site. I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my thanks to the department’s capital works team. I had the opportunity to host a function to thank the team for their work in the 2009-10 financial year. I know there is still a lot more to do. A number of projects are nearing completion but the forward program is still considerable.
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