Page 1958 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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$9.2 million—to finish Gunghalin, Namadgi and Harrison. We have money, $1.8 million, to upgrade the hydrotherapy pool at Malkara special school, upgrades to school toilets, and other similar maintenance issues, some artificial turf and money for the Canberra college cares program for student mothers.
Malkara has 93 students from years 3 to 12 and every student accesses hydrotherapy at least once a week; so clearly this is welcome. But experience tells us that what is suggested is not always delivered and almost never, never on time or within budget.
Take the strategic objectives listed in the budget for education and training. There is a list of indicators with targets and actuals for a range of measures. They fell short of last year’s targets in all but one measure, but perhaps the most telling—that which measures overall satisfaction of parents and carers with public school education.
The target was 86 per cent but they only got to 81.7 per cent. So nearly a fifth, nearly 20 per cent, of all parents are dissatisfied with their children’s public school. That is something the minister can be proud of? And I can see nothing to suggest it will be any better next year.
The department’s strategic plan, released just last year, talks about ensuring students have a safe and inspiring learning environment. But we have increasing evidence of bullying on school campuses and I see no strategies in the budget to address this.
The plan suggests improved quality of teaching, but our teachers lag behind other states in pay rates and conditions. A key performance measure in the plan is the proportion of children participating in public schooling in the ACT. But we know where that is going: backwards.
Sure, the last two years have reversed the previous trend of negative growth, but it is now slowing down again with an increase this year of only 0.4 per cent in public schools, compared to 2.2 per cent growth in non-government schools. Over five times as many children are enrolling as new enrolments in non-government schools. So we have a public school sector that is becoming increasing less popular with parents, a non-government sector growing but getting little help from the government, and a vocational sector expected to find savings.
But it is all okay! The minister said so yesterday. It is all okay, and he used the ACT government’s hasty embrace of the Australian national curriculum initiative as evidence of their progressive approach to education. The fact that every other jurisdiction in Australia has held back from embracing the national curriculum at this point because of fears it is dumbing down their own current curriculum seems to have been lost on this government.
Mr Barr was so keen to be the first one for a change to approach and initiative that he has taken it on when no other jurisdiction has. As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in his speech earlier today, 90 per cent of our schools scored below average in numeracy, with only three of 34 ACT schools scoring above average in years 7 and 9. I might I point out that two of them were non-government schools.
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