Page 2340 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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preschools. But I am not going to do that. I am going to spend just a little time telling the Assembly how this Government is going to keep the preschools that way, and how this Government is going to ensure that people like Mrs Nolan and Mr Jensen, down in the depths of Tuggeranong, are going to be able to enjoy for their children, and the community that Mr Moore was talking about, the preschools that we will be putting there.
This motion is essentially about planning. Therefore, I will talk to that. No matter how important it is to send our children to preschool and how valuable it is to their education, I will stay away from that and talk about the planning matters.
Let me say first of all that there is a clear distinction between schools and preschools. Perhaps because I have worked in this area in a variety of capacities for a long time, I tend to take for granted that fact that there is a distinction. Perhaps not everybody else appreciates it. The clearest way of expressing that distinction is that preschools are the non-compulsory part of our early education system. Children do not have to go there - - -
Mrs Nolan: So are colleges, but they are absolutely essential.
MR WOOD: Agreed. I am not arguing on that point at all. That is why we want to get them down to you in Tuggeranong, because they are very important. The school sector is, of course, compulsory - certainly up to the age of 15. I want to reinforce all that the Minister has had to say on this matter. Preschools in the ACT are being managed in an efficient and effective way. Furthermore, the future of ACT preschools will be guaranteed to meet the needs of all parents through the various planning and consultative processes now in place. We need to plan; that is what has sparked this debate. If we did not plan, if we let things drift, then we could be accused of ineptness, as the motion asserts. That is the time when we would be in trouble. But because the Government is planning, there will be these sound facilities right through Canberra.
The ACT has a system of preschools that is unique in Australia. It has long been the best system of preschool education that could be found anywhere in the country. Still, today, there are more government preschools in the ACT per capita than there are in other parts of Australia. Indeed, in simple numbers, there are more preschools in the ACT than there are government primary schools, that being because of the very important neighbourhood approach, the community aspect.
The preschool system was developed as part of a drive to attract young families to settle in the ACT in the 1940s. In 1945 the model, then as now, was that of a partnership between government, parents and community groups, and that is still the case because the parents in our preschools
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