Page 788 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2005

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understand the science of it—because it is actually a science. But there is a difference between subject matter and curriculum, and we are happy to brief Mrs Dunne on that.

If she wanted to look in this book and see what her daughter or son was going to learn in maths, she would not find it, quite rightly, because this is a curriculum framework. It is not the subject matter for what is going on at a particular school or the particular content in a course that is being carried. This document defines curriculum. It establishes the principles on which curriculum is based, which is required by the education act. There are 36 essential learning achievements outlining what students should understand, what they should know, what they should value—the Libs love values, so that is in there—and what they should be able to do as a result of their schooling.

The document outlines statement markers of progress across four bands of development, the content, the pedagogy and the assessment for essential learning achievements. This document sets the framework. It is then taken to school communities, because we have school-based curriculum here in the ACT, and the schools use this when they are designing the content of the courses they will be running with their students, and they can do this for a four-year-old and they can do this for a 15-year-old.

Instead of the opposition constantly talking down education in the ACT, this document should be welcomed. It should be embraced and it should be understood by anyone who has anything to do with education in the ACT because this is the way all students, regardless of what school they attend, are going to learn and are going to use their learning for the next 10 years.

Policing

MR PRATT: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, the ACT Policing 2003-04 annual report showed that there was a decline in the number of senior police officers during that year. The number of sergeants in the sworn police force fell from a total of 121.5 full-time equivalents in 2002-03 to 115 full-time equivalents in 2003-04. Similarly, the number of sworn officers at the superintendent level fell from 9.4 full-time equivalent positions in 2002-03 to 8.5 officers in 2003-04—a decline.

Why did the number of sworn sergeants and superintendents decline during the 2003-04 financial year? Furthermore, in relation to ACT Policing’s ongoing commitments to the international deployment group, why are you not demanding a one-for-one exchange of sworn senior police officers into and from the IDG? Why do you allow police numbers to run down as a result?

MR HARGREAVES: I was honestly expecting a follow up on the dog question, so I will have to try to do the best I can. Let me tackle the middle question first, because he is really clever. The IDG does not cost us anything, Mr Pratt—they are backfilled.

MR PRATT: It does in bodies!

MR HARGREAVES: The officers are backfilled.

MR PRATT: One for one?


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