Page 1845 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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School Buildings
MR JENSEN: My question also is directed to the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts. I refer to comments made by Mr Moore with respect to the problems of large schools - in particular, the spectre of the Canadian-style high schools. Maybe it will be along the lines, Mr Speaker, of his comments about our having only five of each school in the ACT. Will the Minister install the multilane corridors that Mr Moore considers necessary for large schools?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mr Jensen for his question. It is pretty obvious that, in this particular area, once again Mr Moore has got hold of a slender fact and has let his very fertile imagination go to work on it and turn it into all sorts of bizarre and wonderful things. Mr Moore seems to assume that we will need multilane school corridors because we will be building new schools. What Mr Moore does not appreciate is that we already have a very high standard of school infrastructure in the ACT; that we need to fully, properly and economically use that infrastructure; and that it will not, therefore, be necessary to build new schools or engage in massive modifications to schools.
The schools of which I am speaking were designed to hold, in the first place, considerably more students than they hold at present. If when they were built they did not require multilane corridors, why, I ask Mr Moore, is it necessary for them now to be installed?
Mr Moore: Go out to Ginninderra High School and see.
MR HUMPHRIES: I went out to Ginninderra High School, as it happens, at lunchtime today, Mr Moore. I was very impressed. I looked around the building, and it appears to me - - -
Mr Moore: Were you in a stairwell when the bell rang?
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I was. I was there at the change of classes.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Humphries, please address the original question.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, Mr Speaker. I think it is very obvious that Mr Moore has a great deal of confusion in his mind about the implications of these changes. The ACT really has very few schools which were designed to be small. Almost all of our schools were designed for considerably large numbers of students - between 400 and 600 - but at present the average school enrolment is around 300 students, and in many cases considerably less than that.
You could argue, Mr Speaker, that we do not have any small schools; we have only large school buildings, with few students in them in some cases. With the cost of running
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