Page 3613 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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Increasing the capacity at Duffy primary school, through the use of relocatable buildings to meet increased demand within the Weston Creek area, is a temporary measure that will have to be looked at in the longer term to ensure that students’ needs are being met in the newly developed areas of Molonglo and Coombs. It was disappointing to learn that many in the local school community had not been properly consulted about the exact nature of these temporary classrooms, and I hope that the minister’s recent discussions have provided greater information to the P&C and the school board.
The funding to enable the ACT Teacher Quality Institute to fully develop its business system to comply with national and local legislative requirements for the teaching profession in the ACT is welcome, and the Greens also support anything that can be done to further maintain the quality of teaching in the territory.
Moving on now to some significant budget line items that respond to students and students’ needs, there are some positive initiatives for students with disability in this budget but it does remain to be seen whether the implementation of these programs will answer the real and daily concerns of students, parents and carers. I hope they do.
The Greens have held a range of consultations with families this year, and we know there is always more that can be done to provide socially inclusive and supportive programs. I hope that the federally funded disability education coordination officers will be actively engaged in our 84 schools and provide the early planning support many families having been saying they need and want for some time now.
The one-off grant to support existing students with disabilities in non-government schools has been welcomed by the Independent Schools Association and by the Catholic Education Office, and I support this funding as well. I am disappointed that it is a one-off payment at this stage. The Greens are supportive of this funding being recurrent until the implementation of the Gonski review. Of course the funds for this come from the unallocated funds from the closed interest subsidy scheme.
Outside this budget, there have been announcements that have not had targeted funding allocated, such as the surprising but welcome announcement regarding an independent review of the school autonomy trials, the creation of two new task forces, one looking at dyslexia and other learning difficulties and another looking at school canteens.
We have had a review of the needs of students with English as a second language or dialect, which completely sidestepped the needs of students and failed to accurately reflect the views of those who were consulted. The Greens will continue to pursue this issue to ensure a satisfactory outcome and that English language proficiency levels are raised so that students have a level of English that will give them a chance to thrive when they move into their mainstream school.
We are also keenly awaiting the tabling of research into alternative education settings in the ACT and, of course, we are all waiting to see the implementation of the Gonski review and the outcome of the work that has been done at the federal level that some of our officers have been heavily involved in.
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