Page 1840 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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As always, these engagements with the Catholic Education Office and through visits to non-government schools are characterised by friendly and frank conversations regarding a range of issues. While funding is certainly part of those discussions, it is not the only subject. Education is a broad area. Frankly, I for one believe that issues of education, learning, curriculum and community are best served when they are not used as a political football.
We all know that the Gonski report is out and work is underway. We all know that all sectors, government and non-government, are working hard to find new models of funding that are based on fair and equitable access to education for all children and young people. Schools are about the people in them. I have full confidence that everyone is working in good faith to best represent the students, parents, teachers and schools. I hope that all members here could also exercise that same faith.
I would like to see all parties here acknowledge that we are, as a country and here in the territory, moving to a new way of funding education, and that many of the arguments present in this motion may well be null and void in the near future. The lack of clarity around the current funding system is one of the factors that drove the Gonski report and review—that and a perceived lack of equity.
The current funding system is complex, inconsistent, open to differing interpretations and very controversial. I ask that members here today recognise that these arguments are even more complex in a jurisdiction such as the ACT, where we do not have clear-cut lines of socioeconomic status boundaries, and where issues of cross-border population movements are keenly felt.
I do not shy away from the burning issue that the education system is crying out for new ways of funding and for an injection of funds. While we can all be rightly proud of our local schools, we know that more needs to be done to address the educational achievement gap in the ACT. This gap is caused by many factors, but chief amongst them are known factors of disadvantage and equitable access to key services and opportunities. I believe that the inclusion of new ways to address this through targeted funding is a positive and well overdue recommendation, and one that clearly cuts through the outdated “us and them” debates that we have seen in the past.
After the Gonski report was put out there publicly, was released, the Greens were the first party to call for the immediate injection of funds that Mr Gonski suggested was needed to bring Australian education back into competition with the rest of the developed world. And we were the first party to call for the implementation of his recommendations as soon as practically possible. We believe that all parties should think of education funding in new ways and start looking at the bigger picture facing both the territory and the country.
The big picture is this: despite league tables and lots of tests and so forth, the constant measuring contests between schools, the reduced class sizes and a number of issues out there that have caught media attention, we need to be looking at the fact that Australians are falling behind the rest of the OECD in some key areas of literacy and numeracy. We are falling behind in languages. We are struggling with later life career
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