Page 1879 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 June 2015
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The other council, the Non-government Schools Education Council, is similarly structured, with representatives from Catholic schools, representatives from non-Catholic independent schools, someone from the non-government school union and someone chosen from organisations representing parent associations in non-government schools.
The act outlines the Government Schools Education Council’s functions as:
(a) to advise the Minister on any aspect of the ACT government school system; and
(b) when asked by the Minister … to inquire into and give advice to the Minister on any aspect of the ACT government school system; and
(c) to meet with the Non-Government Schools Education Council to discuss matters of mutual interest; and
(d) to exercise any other function given to the council under this Act or any other Territory law.
The Non-government Schools Education Council’s functions are parallel, insofar as they are:
(a) to advise the Minister on any aspect of non-government schooling; and
(b) when asked by the Minister under this paragraph, to inquire into and give advice to the Minister on any aspect of nongovernment schooling; and
(c) to meet with the Government Schools Education Council to discuss matters of mutual interest; and
(d) to exercise any other function given to the council under this Act or any other Territory law.
So these two councils, which have been in existence for over 10 years, have been tasked with providing advice as required and when required on any subject the minister required them to provide. From inquiries I have made, it would seem that neither council has been overburdened with work or swamped with requests from any education minister.
We now move to the proposals Minister Burch has introduced into the Assembly. I would like to quote from the minister’s second reading speech, which suggested that the bill was being introduced to:
… enable new and different advisory arrangements for the minister responsible for education, arrangements which enable the minister to establish thematically focused, multisectoral, time-constrained forums which allow for input from a variety of government, private and not-for-profit stakeholders to provide up-to-the-minute advice on policy issues as they arise.
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