Page 4001 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
LEGAL AFFAIRS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Statute Law Revision (Penalties) Bill 1993
Debate resumed from 13 October 1994, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That the report be noted.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MINISTERIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL ON PUBLIC EDUCATION
Report
Debate resumed from 18 May 1994, on motion by Mr Wood:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR CORNWELL (5.17): Madam Speaker, the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Education report, or the MACPE report as it is called, has been prepared, I believe, by competent and committed people. It is well researched and makes some telling points. Unfortunately, it does not tell us anything new. Through no fault of the council's members, it stands as yet another Ozymandias monument, Mr Minister, to this Follett Labor Government's approach to so-called community consultation. That MACPE had to be set up at all raises serious and significant questions about this Government's increasingly failing capacity to tune in to the community.
In each of the three areas of education highlighted by the Minister in his tabling speech - and therefore, we assume, identified by the Government as the major findings of this report - we discover only what is self-evident and certainly what could have been ascertained by a quick visit to several schools. I refer to the need to address student skills in literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling; the need to address the personal and social aspects of educating young adolescents in the middle years of schooling; and, finally, the need to provide a cohesive and integrated approach for vocational education and training. Not only are these three points self-evident; they also are uncontentious and, I suggest, would not have been remarked on if they represented the only recommendations of MACPE. However, this is not the case, because there are, in all, 14 recommendations. Some have incurred the ire of sections of the education establishment. The Council of P and C Associations was particularly critical. Indeed, their two representatives on the council presented a minority report, as did, in a separate minority report, the representative of the Canberra Pre-School Society.
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