Page 3274 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 September 2014
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Not agreed.
The Education and Training Directorate (ETD) has existing established structures to facilitate and support arts education in ACT public schools.
ETD also works in partnership with a range of arts organisations and stakeholders, including artsACT, to enhance arts education in ACT schools.
The Childers Group does not think that is working. That is another priority that the government have got wrong, but if they got to the basics of it and made sure these relationships were working perfectly, if we are going to improve creativity in our kids, which we all know is important in the learning and the education process, then of course that would be a good way to do it.
The third area that I would like to speak about is higher education. Of course, we have now got a Minister for Higher Education. What we do not have is an output class, what we do not have are key indicators and what do not have is any strategic plan for it. Recommendation 71 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government establish an output entitled ‘Higher Education’, and develop strategic objectives and accountability indicators for the output.
Yet again, the response is:
Noted.
While policy responsibility for higher education rests with the Commonwealth …
There you have it. We are not going to do it because it rests with the commonwealth. Higher ed is incredibly important to all cities, to all nations, and we should be taking this seriously. Just to say it is noted and the policy rests with the federal government is a cop-out of the highest order. It goes on to say:
…the ACT Government is committed to supporting growth in the higher education sector …
They have set up a website, StudyCanberra, they have gone on a few overseas trips, they tried to get the message out.
The other recommendation that came up in this area concerned student accommodation. Student accommodation is a really pressing issue. We heard from various groups including Shelter who said that really higher ed was not working for a lot of students because it is just out of their price range. Recommendation 3 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government investigate and detail to the Assembly by the last sitting day of October 2014 the true extent of housing stress and homelessness amongst university students in the ACT.
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