Page 2792 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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The conversation around the education of three-year-olds was another wheel spin. The policy was first mentioned over a year ago. At the time, my colleague Ms Lee welcomed the news and sought a briefing to learn more. It became apparent in the first five minutes of the briefing that this policy was no more than a thought bubble. Even during estimates this year, there was little more information available.
We are told that there will be a “targeted, phased approach”—they are the minister’s words—providing up to 400 dedicated places for what are described as, again to quote, “priority children”. We are told that the first phase of the universal access initiative for three-year-olds will start in 2020. What we do not know is where, how or who will be selected. We do not know how it might be funded. No doubt the original policy announcement was predicated on the fact that ACT Labor were supremely confident there would be a federal Labor government, and they did make many promises.
We do not know whether existing schools will accommodate three-year-olds. We do not know if childcare centres will be accredited. We do not know where the additional teaching force will be sourced from or even if there are sufficient numbers of trained preschool teachers available for employment. If children are selected on the basis of disadvantage, how will those three-year-olds access preschool if it is not delivered in their suburb? What work will be required to communicate to parents that this is an important opportunity? On the question of school psychologists, there will never be agreement from this side of the chamber that the government is addressing the issue appropriately or in sufficient numbers.
As I said at the beginning, this was not an enlightening estimates and we learnt little around what the government’s budget commitments are seeking to address or what outcomes the taxpayer should be expecting. Perhaps it is more of a concern that neither does the minister. The opposition holds a very dire outlook on what is happening in education.
MS ORR (Yerrabi) (3.44): Gungahlin is continuing to grow. That is why this Barr government is building and expanding schools for our community. In this year’s budget we are delivering two new schools for Gungahlin: a preschool to year six school for Throsby and a high school for Kenny. With Throsby’s community starting to grow and families and first homebuyers calling the new suburb home, I know that residents in Throsby are excited about the infrastructure that this government is planning for the suburb. A new home of football and recreation ovals will be ready for use when classes start at Throsby’s primary school from term one in 2022.
The new school will have capacity for 450 primary students and 132 preschool students, with further space to allow for future student growth. As a result of this investment in Throsby through the 2019-20 budget and in the coming years, students in Gungahlin’s north-east will be able to attend a great local public school.
Across Horse Park Drive in Kenny, planning work will get underway for a new high school to cater for up to 1,000 students living in the surrounding suburbs and the future residents of Kenny in 2023. By beginning planning work now on the new high school, the ACT government is building for the future of east Gungahlin.
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