Page 1207 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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It is also important to note, in line with Mr Doszpot’s question about proactive management of increased enrolments, that since the start of 2015 Garran Primary School has not accepted out-of-area enrolments except for a special circumstances case. Priority enrolment area changes for the school are being finalised for 2017 to support the school’s current enrolment management plan. The proposed change will include removing O’Malley from Garran’s priority enrolment area. Residents of O’Malley would join the Mawson Primary School priority enrolment area. This proposed change has been available on the Education Directorate website since 2015.
The Garran Primary School principal has discussed this proposal with the school board. The directorate also keeps in close contact with the Garran Primary School principal and executive group to discuss enrolment management strategies, including the priority enrolment area changes and potential changes to infrastructure.
I now turn to the amendment that I moved today because I want to be very clear that I accept that this is an important issue, that I accept the Assembly should be giving good information on this and I intend to engage very seriously on the questions that Mr Doszpot has raised today. Once we get past some of that scaremongering-type thing I think we can have a decent discussion about this and I am happy to have that discussion.
My amendment notes some of the things that are happening, which I have spoken to in my speech today, and then calls on the government to make public the directorate’s enrolment projections for each school for 2017 and 2018 by the last sitting day of June 2016. There are two changes to Mr Doszpot’s original call and I will speak to each of those. One of them is the later date. The two things are related.
Firstly I have only proposed to bring forward two years of projections, and the reason I am proposing to do that is that I have asked the directorate to do some further work. I propose to simply provide those two years because I think they are years that have good data that I feel confident in providing to the Assembly, and when further work becomes available I am happy to provide that further work. That is the reason for dropping 2019 off that list. I would like to simply provide data that I have confidence in, and I undertake further work on future years of data.
In regards to the proposed date, I would like some additional time, as this is an area where I would like to be able to come back with a thorough and comprehensive answer. I seek from the Assembly a little more time to be able to do that.
That is the basis on which I have made some changes to what Mr Doszpot had asked for. I consider them to be reasonable proposals, for the reasons that I have just outlined, but with an undertaking that I do take this issue seriously. I am happy to have a detailed conversation when I have provided those reports. I am happy to arrange a time for Mr Doszpot to sit down and speak with directorate staff if he would like to go through the information that I provide in further detail.
I am committed to being as transparent on this as I can usefully be and ensuring that there is confidence in the community that the government is aware of some of these
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