Page 499 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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the 10 years between 2005-06 and 2014-15 the government spent or has budgeted to spend around $798 million on capital works and information communication technology in the portfolio. When the commonwealth funding of the building of the education revolution and the two trade training centres are included, this amount increases to around $960 million.
Mr Doszpot would have us believe our schools are run down and dangerous. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our schools are lively, vibrant places of learning and growing. Whenever I visit one of our schools I am always struck by the positive environment and the happy faces of the students. The government is committed to keeping our schools safe and well maintained.
Every school has a detailed condition assessment report prepared every three years. Every school has a hazardous material survey and management plan. Every school has its asbestos report updated every year. Every school has a three-year audit report updated every year. The government allocates a bit over $20 million each financial year to undertake repairs and maintenance works in our public schools, and these funds are used for a range of works, including planned maintenance, painting and carpeting, asbestos removal, safety issues, and the replacement of sewer and stormwater pipes.
In addition to the repairs and maintenance funding, the government also invests in an annual capital upgrades program of $14 million, and these funds are used for refurbishment and upgrading and expansion of learning areas, front entry upgrades, toilet refurbishments, staff room refurbishments, additional parking, new lifts, environmental sustainability, older school upgrades and landscaping, and hearing assistance systems to name a few.
A program of school infrastructure planning is in place to address the current and future enrolment needs in relation to education across the ACT. The directorate undertakes student enrolment projections modelling using information from land release data, sales data, birth data, occupation dwelling forecasts, school census and capacities data.
The directorate regularly monitors the current and projected enrolments of schools with the principals to assist them in managing their intake through, for example, managing enrolments of out-of-area students and the use of transportable buildings. Where necessary, schools are expanded to accommodate urban renewal, including the works undertaken at Macgregor, Majura, and Duffy primary schools in recent years.
The government is also investing to ensure all our schools are energy efficient. All ACT public schools now have solar voltaic systems and smart meters to measure in real time the capacity of water, gas and electricity. The ACT is the first jurisdiction to achieve this level of environmental management. These meters are used not only to allow school leadership to monitor and plan their energy use but have also been integrated into the school curriculum. The government is also installing high efficiency light fittings to all ACT public schools and solar hot-water systems for pools. Each public school has a rainwater tank so that the water can be used for either flushing toilets or irrigating the school landscapes.
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