Page 507 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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Another who kept her child out of school said:
I had to choose between my son’s education and his safety. Ultimately, I chose his safety.
There is something endemically wrong in the current structure, approach and attitude of the minister and the directorate in dealing with this issue of antisocial behaviour. It is not about equity in schools; the schools affected range across the territory and are in various socioeconomic catchments. They are in the north, they are in the south, and they are in the middle. It raises the question of quality leadership at individual schools, at the network level and at the ministerial level. This is why we are calling for an independent inquiry.
You just cannot put a vampire in charge of the blood bank. There is no point in the minister and those in the directorate who have overseen these atrocities assessing themselves, especially in the context of the breakdown of trust we have seen from teachers, parents and students, the breakdown of the community’s faith in this minister whose responsibility it is to look out for them, and the breakdown in confidence in the minister who has failed them so devastatingly.
Such an inquiry will provide a fresh window on the problem, an unbiased study into the various factors at work. Such an inquiry will hopefully go some way to restoring faith in these ACT schools of a growing disillusioned parent community. It will lead to fewer children requiring psychological support and fewer children falling behind in their studies through illness or fear.
We cannot have a school system where a six-year-old child believes they do not matter. We cannot have a school system where parents choose between their child’s safety and their education. We cannot have a school system where teachers are openly crying out in front of their class because they have received no support from the minister or their support leaders above them.
We can and must do better, and an open inquiry would go a long way as a first step. Our future generation, our hard-working teachers, our parent community deserve that at the least. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (4.12): I thank the opposition for bringing this important issue to the Assembly today. And first of all, to correct the record, I have never said that any of these issues do not exist and I have never refused to take action on any of these issues. I think it is important that I put that on the record. I have never said otherwise in this place.
The government will be opposing this motion because this particular motion is largely incorrect. It is internally inconsistent and it is based on some very poor assumptions. I want to explain the philosophy of this government on school education. It should be
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