Page 1469 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the Ministry for Health, Education and the Arts has been asked to progress a government response to the report of the Standing Committee, and I would expect that response to be available some time in the next few weeks. We have an informal policy of attempting to get responses to Assembly committee reports down within approximately three months, and that would, I hope, be the target we would meet in this case; but I cannot make any firm promises on that.
In terms of whether I have read the whole report, I have to say, Mr Speaker, that the pressures of office have been enormous in the last few months and, to my great regret, I have not yet completed reading Mr Stevenson's section of the report of the committee on fluoride. However, I will do my very best to do so before the Assembly committee's report is considered by the Assembly.
Public Education
MR MOORE: My question is to Mr Humphries as Minister for Education. Minister, I draw your attention to the March issue of Feedback, the P & C newsletter, in which it is said:
Many parents will be aghast at the thought of yet another inquiry into government school organisation in the ACT. This year alone we have:
Belconnen Region High Schools Task Force ...
another high school review ...
a proposed review of the college system,
a review of policies for students with special needs,
a review of funding for non-government schools ...
an inquiry into school-based management,
proposals for literacy and numeracy testing,
implementation of the relatively new school review and development process.
They then go on to say:
We are entitled to ask the Government for an overview of its objectives for government schools in the ACT. Where is public education going in the ACT? How do each of the reviews in 1991 of different aspects of that system fit together in this vision of the future? To what kind of system, and for what purpose, are those reviews intended to contribute?
I hardly expect you to give a full answer off the cuff, Mr Humphries, but I think a general answer now and then a full response to the community, perhaps in a ministerial statement, would be quite appropriate. Would you be prepared to take that on?
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