Page 1021 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 26 July 1989
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Is the Minister aware of the change in emphasis of the Schools Office, which used to use the term parents as "partners" and now refers to parents as its "clients".
My response is: The ACT Schools Office has a major commitment to providing high quality services to its clients. Whilst acknowledging that parents are active partners in the education process, they are nonetheless clients in the sense that they receive products and services for which they pay, either directly or indirectly.
To facilitate an improved service in education the Schools Office has developed a culture of service with a clear focus on serving students, parents, employees, and society as a whole. One view of service is that "service is identifying and efficiently meeting customers' and clients' overt and covert needs
doing work on behalf of others
helping
providing expertise
giving advice
solving problems
following up on earlier action
giving satisfaction"
Interaction with parents will always remain a very high priority and parent and citizen associations continue to play an important role in liaison between schools, parents and the wider community. They are well represented on the newly formed Ministerial Consultative Committee on Schooling which will provide me with advice on relevant issues following consultation with representative groups, identify significant issues of concern and provide an independent forum for discussion and formulation of community viewpoints.
Through these initiatives the Schools Office is seeking to provide the best possible service to its clients.
Shopping Hours
Mr Whalan: On 25 May 1989 Mr Collaery asked the Chief Minister the following question:
Is the Chief Minister aware that in a recent issue of the Civic Advance Bank quarterly bulletin dealing with trends in economic developments a suggestion was made that shopping hours be extended in the ACT, or at least in the Civic area, to serve the double purpose of encouraging tourism in the city area and countering the image of Canberra as boring? Would the Chief Minister please comment on that recommendation.
The question was referred to me by the Chief Minister. I am aware of the article referred to and note with interest
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