Page 4101 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
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Regrettably, there seems very little will to give the decision-making authority on any of these issues to the people directly responsible for the majority of school funding: state and territory education ministers. Instead we have been hearing from the federal government that they are seeking to lock themselves in, through legislation, as the very clear minority funder of public schools but equally to impose a reform agenda with very little regard for what is actually happening within our schools.
The Australian Education Act does not require an agreement of some kind to be reached in order for federal government funding to flow in 2018. I really do hope that the federal government seeks a more respectful engagement with states and territories in seeking this agreement by the end of the year.
MS ORR: Is the federal government consulting with states and territories as it proceeds with the second Gonski review and with the implementation of changes under the amended federal education act?
MS BERRY: The consultation that has been occurring with residents around public housing renewal has been much fuller than the consultation by the federal government on the changes and the proposals that they want to make regarding the Gonski review. After the Gonski 1 process, which ran over a couple of years, we have had a compressed one this time around, in which everybody has been given one month to make a submission. Two weeks of that fall within school holidays. In theory, the outcomes of this process will become the requirements which our schools have to meet to get federal funding. So the process has been poor at best. Beyond that, we have had little reassurance that state and territory governments will be able to stick with programs that are in place already under the Gonski 1 agreement, for fear of being financially penalised.
A year 1 phonics test is a prime example. It is not a Gonski outcome but it is a Liberal Party policy commitment. Since the national phonics test was first floated, I have emphasised to Minister Birmingham the diagnostic work that ACT teachers do through our PIPS performance indicators in primary schools assessment, combined with their own professional judgement, to assess literacy and numeracy skills through our students’ first year at school. They gauge their students, talk with parents and make adjustments so that individual students can learn in the ways that best suit them. There is no need for another standardised national test for Australian students, schools and teachers to be judged by. So the ACT government will continue to advocate for the best interests of schools, students and educators. I commit again to a further and continued request to the federal minister to come to Canberra—I know he is here; I see him on the telly—and visit our schools to see what is going on there and the success that we are having. (Time expired.)
MS CODY: Minister, why is it important that the Gonski reforms already in place in the ACT are bedded down and built upon?
MS BERRY: Because our schools and teachers have already done so much and are working so hard to implement those first parts of the reform. In a few areas the
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