Page 1983 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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Gungahlin College has been purpose built for teaching and learning in the 3rd millennium. The college design, construction, facilities and fit-out make Gungahlin College the finest example of senior secondary education in Australia.
The College features the latest in sustainable design and includes flexible learning hubs for collaborative learning, a media centre with TV and photography studios, a performing arts theatre with dance and drama studios, high standard music and arts facilities, a full commercial kitchen and computer networking laboratory.
That is Gungahlin. Harrison, led by principal Dennis Yarrington, and Namadgi, led by co-principals Lynn Petersen and Pam Rosser, all of whom I have met, are of similarly high standards. And we should be proud of them. But I have been to other schools—and I will not betray confidences by identifying them—that struggle with facilities, that struggle for enough resources.
The recent asbestos scare at Taylor primary school might be regarded as an unfortunate fate of weather. But we know that an asbestos report in 2008 had highlighted difficulties with that school. There are another 20 or more schools with similar reports that suggest removal of asbestos as soon as practicable. Has it been done? Who knows? We have public school buildings that are over 40 years old and we have to wonder whether any strategic planning has been done to determine what our needs are into the future.
Perhaps it was part of a strategic plan to tell parents before the last election that schools would not be closed and then close them once the election was over. That was undoubtedly the Chief Minister’s finest hour in her time in Education, that and her vote for a motion at a Labor Party conference that claimed, “The growth of private education has facilitated the fragmentation of Australia’s children along ethnic, cultural and particularly religious lines.”
The government talk about valuing teachers. They say so in their Everyone matters publication. But their actions do not support the glossy brochures. The ACT government, in all of its publicity over several education ministers—Ministers Corbell, Gallagher, Barr and now Bourke—say that “we hold great store in quality teaching” and that the department is “committed to providing an environment for teachers that will increasingly support them in focusing on the core business of teaching and learning”.
But Minister Barr showed no such support and provided no such environment to allow teachers to get on with the business of teaching. It was Minister Barr who hung public school teachers out to dry for over a year before he agreed to a new enterprise bargaining agreement. Throughout those negotiations he attacked them on any number of issues—attendance records, cutbacks in support for ESL teachers, attempted cutbacks to teachers of the visually impaired. He promised for almost a decade six-figure salaries and school autonomy. He delivered none of it.
ACT Labor talk about supporting Canberra families. “We will foster high quality parent and stakeholder participation in school communities,” it says in Everyone matters, but they wanted to close 39 schools, or almost a third of all ACT primary
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