Page 3903 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
skills and to increase children’s participation in physical activity; to create and strengthen links between cluster primary and secondary schools; to sustain the provision of specialist PE support to primary schools in the longer term and to create and strengthen links between primary schools and the community to increase children’s opportunities to be physically active.
There are a range of options as to how these officers will work within schools. For example, they can, and will, be based in single schools for a five-week block working intensively with a couple of primary schools each term over a three-year period. They will also work with clusters of schools to provide support in the way that best supports the needs of individual school communities. At the end of this three-year program our expectation is that all primary schools will have quality PE programs in place, that teachers will be skilled in their delivery and that they will have established strong links with other primary schools, their cluster secondary schools and community groups and sporting groups, and that strategies are in place for ongoing specialist support.
Importantly here is the Children’s Physical Activity Foundation, established by the government with seed funding of $250,000. I am very pleased with the level of interest from sporting groups, business groups and other community organisations to participate in this foundation, which is based on the model of the UK Sports Trust. I am very pleased to report that the national forum that I hosted earlier in the year in Canberra in conjunction with Brenda McConchie and others to which we invited Sue Campbell and Steve Grainger from UK Sport to come and talk to us a little about the experience in the UK and how to establish such a model was a very productive and useful experience. We have now put that into place with the establishment of this foundation. I very much look forward to the continuation of community and business interest in the foundation. It will have the ability to provide the resources and the financial underpinning for the ongoing delivery of quality physical education programs in our schools.
To conclude in the education area, we have put in place a range of initiatives that meet the key areas that we have identified and that we undertook to deliver on during this term of government: student welfare and additional support for the arts, languages, and vocational education and training. We are looking at a range of responses here to meet our commitments during this term of government, but also, very forward looking, working in partnership with the incoming Rudd Labor government in the areas of early childhood, trades training centres within our schools—there is nearly $45 million that is going to be coming to the ACT school system in that area—the provisions of IT and, particularly, backing our investment in the 2006-07 budget, in additional information and communication technology capacity across the entire public education system. The ACT leads the nation and the world in ICT provision in our schools and we look to build on this in partnership with the incoming Labor government.
I certainly look forward to working with Julia Gillard in the implementation of the education revolution. It is something that this country needs and something that the ACT government stands ready to back and support. In many areas, in fact, I am very pleased to say that the ACT is already ahead of the national benchmarks that the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .