Page 541 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 22 March 2023
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their education. Every ACT child should have access to a quality education and the life chances that flow from it. That is why in 2016 ACT Labor promised to make sure that every high school and college student in our public schools would have equal access to technology to support their learning. In 2018 we delivered on the promise by providing 17,000 laptops to ACT public school students. For over five years now the ACT government has been leading the nation by ensuring that access to technology for learning would not be an educational barrier in the ACT. The ACT government is also working with schools and stakeholders to commence our meals in schools pilot in 2023, another ACT Labor election commitment. No student should have to learn, or be expected to learn, on an empty stomach. We know they learn much better with a full stomach and we want to make sure our children have the support and the nutrition they need to enable them to get the most and the best experiences with their education.
Schools—staff welfare
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs. Minister, yesterday, when informed that over 75 per cent of ACT principals faced threats of violence, which is the highest in Australia, and that over 73 per cent faced actual violence—also the highest in Australia—or that sexual harassment in ACT schools is over four times higher than the national average, the Chief Minister said it was a societal problem. Minister, if this is simply a societal problem, can you explain why sexual harassment is four times higher in ACT schools than in the rest of Australia, based on recent reports?
MS BERRY: The Chief Minister was right: these issues of bullying and sexual harassment do reflect a broader societal problem. Without having looked into the data of the Australian Catholic University’s research, I do not know the data behind the reports that they have provided, what I can say is that our schools have, over a number of years now, adopted a high reporting culture, which means that we can understand very clearly what is happening with our schools and then work with our school communities to address it.
We have worked very hard with our schools to ensure that when issues like these arise they are not kept hidden; they are reported. We continue to work with our schools to address these problems. The question suggests that it is not a reflection of a broader societal problem. We need to have a national conversation on this, which I understand the ACT Principals’ Association have asked for. I have agreed with them and will be writing to Minster Clare to have that conversation. Our reporting culture in the ACT means that we know more about what is happening in our schools than perhaps any other state or territory does.
MR HANSON: Minister, can you explain why violence rates are so much higher in the ACT than in the rest of Australia?
MS BERRY: As I have just described, particularly within our public schools, we have a very high rate of reporting of incidents, which we encourage so that we can understand and address them. I am not sure of the case within our non-government schools in the ACT. As I said, I do not have a breakdown of the data or of whereabouts within our school system the data that was reported on by the Catholic
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