Page 3166 - Week 10 - Thursday, 18 October 2007
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The issue that is fundamental to the matter of public importance that Mr Gentleman has raised is the issue of collaboration and what can be achieved when governments work together. Earlier this year education ministers from around the country gathered in Darwin with the commonwealth minister, Minister Bishop. We state and territory ministers went to this meeting on the understanding that we would be tackling a range of important education issues and that we would be focusing on improving educational outcomes in this country.
Of course, Minister Bishop had her own agenda to run. She was perhaps more interested in getting a cheap headline in the Australian newspaper. Her standard operating procedure was to publish the commonwealth papers and views on particular issues in the Australian the week before the meeting. But when it actually came to providing any papers and policy papers or having any decent discussion on the issues at the ministerial council, Minister Bishop was nowhere to be found. It was a wasted opportunity. Ministers could have come together and worked on proposals that would have helped students and their families right around Australia. Unfortunately, the Howard government’s destructive approach meant that this could not happen.
It has been left to the states and territories to put forward a positive agenda for education. Earlier this year, the Council for the Australian Federation made up of premiers and chief ministers of the states and territories released the report The future of schooling in Australia. This report proposes a national framework for schooling based on the principle that quality and performance of teachers, schools and jurisdictions are central to the prospects of every student and to national prosperity. This is yet another example of the states and territories putting forward a positive agenda while the commonwealth is missing in action.
The Stanhope government is likewise committed to putting forward a positive agenda for education in the ACT. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two recent policy papers that I have released. The first deals with early childhood education. The Stanhope government is committed to giving our children the best start in life and we are putting in place the policy framework to make this happen. As part of its commitment to early childhood education, in 2005 the Stanhope government increased the number of preschool education hours to 12 per week for all four-year-old children in the territory. In 2003, the government also reduced class sizes in the early years of schooling. Classes from kindergarten to year 3 generally now have a maximum of 21 students.
To further our commitment to early childhood education the government will be establishing four new early childhood schools: Southern Cross, to serve the Belconnen region; Lyons, to serve the Woden and Weston Creek region; Isabella Plains, to serve the Tuggeranong region; and Narrabundah, to serve the central Canberra region. These regional centres will provide access to integrated services for children from birth to eight years.
We envisage that these services will include, in addition to the preschool program to year 2, childcare and family support services and other services to sustain children’s health and wellbeing. From 2008, all ACT government preschools will be forming a closer working relationship with a primary school to support continuity of learning. All ACT government schools catering for primary aged students will offer two years of non-compulsory education.
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