Page 2721 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.57): The answer to Mr Kaine's question, Madam Speaker, is that this has occurred largely as a result of the change to the administrative arrangements orders. Payments for rent, fitout and so on follow the break-up of the Corporate Services Bureau and the redistribution of that bureau, mostly into the Department of Public Administration. I am advised that that is the major reason for that increase.
Mr Kaine: It is a massive increase.
MS FOLLETT: Yes, I agree.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Department of Education and Training
Proposed expenditure - Division 220 - Canberra Institute of Technology, $62,356,500 - agreed to.
Proposed expenditure - Division 230 - Government Schooling, $199,865,700
MR CORNWELL (3.58): Madam Speaker, we are having a cognate debate on the Appropriation Bill and the Estimates Committee report. I feel, therefore, that it is important to draw to the attention of the Assembly, and particularly the Government, some of the recommendations that came out of the Estimates Committee in relation to schooling. I would like particularly to mention what appears on page 47 in relation to the section on literacy and numeracy, and what appears over the page in paragraph 4.145 in relation to peak enrolments.
The literacy and numeracy initiative is welcomed, I am sure, by everybody in the Assembly, not to mention people out there in the school community. However, $300,000 is a petty, piddling amount. To make matters worse, it is only a pilot program and, thus, the funding will be available only for 12 months. As we have stated in the Estimates Committee report at paragraph 4.143, it is already known that some 19 per cent of students entering Year 1 require reading recovery assistance, and only 13 per cent of such students are, in fact, receiving this assistance.
What is important to remember in relation to that comment is the reference, which was the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, The Literary Challenge, of December 1992. We are already 18 months beyond that time, and I do not believe that anybody in this house would imagine that the situation has improved to the extent that we no longer have 19 per cent requiring assistance; that somehow it has fallen back to the 13 per cent who are receiving assistance. I do not think anybody is naive enough to imagine that. Therefore, I would urge the Government to not seriously consider but, in fact, act upon the recommendation of the Estimates Committee, namely:
. the Government extend and expand the Numeracy and Literacy pilot program to a permanent program with appropriate growth funds.
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