Page 652 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 May 1992
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That is, next year. I ask you what action you propose to take on behalf of the Government to implement these recommendations, given that your Labor Party's policy at 3.7 states:
Establish guidelines for the early identification and resolution of literacy and numeracy problems without recourse to standardised systematic testing.
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, I think Mr Cornwell's first statement said it. As near as I can remember - and I do not have that much worked over document, the Finn report, in front of me - all States and Territories have developed mechanisms. In the ACT we have in each school mechanisms whereby teachers can assess how well their students are going. You referred to a further part of the report. That report is specifically related to education and training of the older age group. The progress on that report - and we are part of it - is being undertaken through Carmichael and through Myer. We are part of that.
It is worth pointing out that there is a renewed interest in competencies. The interest in competencies on the training side is inevitably going to have some impact on the education side. Indeed, education and training are going to be rather less apart than they may have been in past years. So, in respect of your second question, we are under way, with other States and Territories, on the paths directed through Finn, Carmichael and Myer.
MR CORNWELL: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Do I then understand that we have shifted from the view expressed by you last year? I quote from the Canberra Times of 30 September last year:
The ACT is the only public-education system which does not have some form of uniform monitoring of literacy and numeracy and, according to Mr Wood, there is no urgency.
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, what the Finn report is about is the training of our young people, predominantly those who are leaving or have left school. It is about their certification through into employment. I have indicated that it has an impact on education and what happens at lower levels of education, and that is to be worked through. The ACT Government has not changed its general view about mass testing of pupils in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and so on. We still know very well what happens there; we still know that the year 12 graduates we turn out are excellent by all criteria. They are keenly sought in universities and other tertiary institutions. What you are asking about is the development specifically in the area of training and the focus in training not so much on judging time as on judging competency.
Goulburn Gaol - ACT Prisoners
MR MOORE: My question is addressed to Mr Connolly as Attorney-General. It is my understanding that ACT prisoners in Goulburn gaol had their visiting hours reduced from two hours per week to an hour per week; that visiting hours for the unemployed prisoners, 295 out of 300, are to occur only on Fridays and Mondays and not weekends; that phone calls have been reduced from two calls per week of 12 minutes to one call per week of five to six minutes - calls are,
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