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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (14 June) . . Page.. 1768 ..

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have indicated that community consultation was conducted in July and August of last year. I would indicate to members, if they are not aware of this, that there are five strands of literacy and five strands of numeracy reporting for years 3 and 5, and I think it is three strands for each of years 7 and 9. As I said, the consultation had two components: a discussion paper with 138 written responses, and 500 random telephone surveys of government school parents whose kids were in the relevant age groups. When one considers how many kids we had in our government system at that time, that is a very significant survey. You are probably talking about 10 per cent of the school parent population, so it is very accurate.

The respondents to the 138 written responses fell into one of several groups: the P&C associations and councils, school and district boards, community members, teacher groups, and professional associations. That consultation process indicated that some 75 per cent of parents wanted to receive information about school and system average scores. Parents were most interested in the written consultations and the results of their child compared with a benchmark or average. There was some support for changing the ways results were reported, and certainly the vast majority of those responses were against direct comparisons of schools in the form of league tables. So that is fine. Quite a number of the 138 respondents were teachers-and, as one would expect, these are people who are very interested in education and are actively involved in the system.

In the random telephone survey of parents the 500 respondents spoken to matched the criterion of having a child in an ACT government school. Eighty-five per cent of those respondents were aware of the program; 76 per cent of them were interested in knowing how their child's school performed in the assessment program compared with other ACT schools; and 77 per cent were interested in receiving information showing their child's results against a national benchmark.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think it would be worthwhile to read into the record some of the results of the survey. I will do so and then table the document. I refer first of all to page 14. Some 14 per cent of parents volunteered that they were in favour of comparing results with the average result of all students in the same year at the same school. When asked directly how useful this information would be, some 76 per cent thought the information would be useful, and a smaller percentage thought it would not be of any use.

The respondents were asked about comparing the results with the average result of all students in the same year at all ACT government schools-in other words, how your student is going compared with the system average for that strand. Sixteen per cent of parents volunteered that one themselves. Again, some 76 per cent thought it would be useful, 37 per cent said very useful, 39 per cent said of some use, 10 per cent said of little use, and eight per cent said of no use.

Another question related to whether respondents were interested in information comparing schools' performances. It seems that these responses were very different to the responses to the written surveys which some of the professional groups participated in. When asked directly, some 76 per cent of parents expressed interest in information that showed how their child's school performed in the literacy and numeracy assessment program; 41 per cent were very interested; 35 per cent were interested; 12 per cent were not very interested; 9 per cent were not at all interested; and 3 per cent were neutral.

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