Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (2 April) . . Page.. 1221 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

sending their children to schools that they perceived would meet their needs in a better way.

Mr Pratt would say, "Well, that's good, that's their choice."The problem with that is that you end up with marginalised schools. You end up with schools which are almost schools of last resort for people who are particularly disadvantaged in the community. That has implications for the whole of society. These schools, which are attended by children from particular social groups, are not able to attract sponsorship.

This has happened in the ACT as well. I remember a couple of years ago, when we were inquiring into services for children at risk, being told by educators that certain schools that were struggling had to keep attracting middle-class parents because they were the parents who would pay the fees, support fundraising and so on. To keep the children of middle-class parents there was a resistance to adopting programs that adequately catered for children who were at risk. For example, a very strict uniform policy can make it very difficult for students who may come from troubled backgrounds. There are ways of isolating and excluding children even within the public schools of Canberra, and this is one of the reasons why people were concerned about the ideology and education policy of the Liberal government in Canberra.

In the UK and, to a degree, in Victoria there were tiers of schooling. Obviously that is not good in any way for society-I do not know if I need to say why, but I will briefly explain. You get particular groups of people not mixing broadly. We want to have and accept diversity in our community. So often we hear rhetoric from politicians of all persuasions that we need to have a culture in our schools that will promote acceptance and diversity. These are very important values, which inform people's lives when they leave school.

Groups of people who are isolated from each other according to their socioeconomic status, their race or whatever, obviously have less of a chance than people who have grown with a school experience and in an environment where they have learnt to be accepting and in fact celebrate the wonderful diversity that is in every society.

I was interested to see on television the other night a program in which Catholic boys from an elite Catholic school had meetings with girls from a Muslim school. Of course, these two groups are so separate from each other. When the Catholic boys and the Muslim girls were spoken to afterwards, they said, "Wow, that's the first time I have ever talked to a Muslim"and "That's the first time I have ever talked to a rich Catholic boy", and "Oh, they are like us. They are ordinary people"and so on. I am sure it is obvious at this time in our history why this is incredibly important. That is a more extreme example of what can happen when groups are isolated from each other in that way through the private education system.

You can end up with a situation where children who attend marginal schools, which have fewer resources and are faced with issues of teacher moral and the extreme demands placed on teachers, have not got the same chance to find a way to be active, participating and positive citizens in our society. We want to have in our society universal, high quality, free, accessible education in the public system for everybody.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .