Page 2351 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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ignored by some seeking to talk up a crisis in our educational standards, that the Australian education systems are all near the top of the world in educational outcomes. Australian students, as a rule, are particularly strong in independent thinking, in the capacity to act autonomously, as well as having generally high literacy and numeracy standards, A to E testing of literacy and numeracy or not.
The issue that I am concerned about is the growing achievement gap for Canberra school students between those doing well, who are mostly from the majority of students that come from a higher level of socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, and some students from other backgrounds who are not doing as well. I understand that the minister might think he can dodge the issue by asserting that there is no perceived weakness in the ACT government school system. If that is the case, then there is a problem of perception, at least on his part.
In my mind, any situation where those students who are falling behind are falling further behind all the time is a weakness. I think there is adequate data out there which suggests that this is the case. While we are doing better than other states, for the obvious reasons, those students in the lower two quartiles are not doing better, particularly, than the rest of Australia, and, in comparison to their peers in the ACT, they are doing worse.
The government, while it might choose to define the problem differently, nonetheless has some programs in place to address them. There are funds available for students to assist them through school. There are resources available to schools in order to support the students to engage in particular activities. There are programs to fund some professional development under the schools equity fund. In this context, I would like to acknowledge the value of the initiatives that have flowed from the Skills Commission report. Colleges in particular have served the interests of many of our senior students well but they have let down others.
The increase in resources that will go to voc ed and other related education and training schemes for young people from year 9 up is welcome. It shows, I think, the benefits of putting together wide-ranging expertise and acknowledging the problem that needs to be addressed. However, there are still too many students missing out on an enriching and engaging education, especially at a secondary level. And however the ACT government chooses to present its figures, there is no, or very little, real increase in recurrent funding once inflation-associated pay rises have been taken into account. But the problem really is that the government keeps arguing that there is no problem.
It is interesting that the Towards 2020 reorganisation that has torn the heart out of a number of Canberra communities has had most of its impact on primary schools; yet the problems for the government and, indeed, all governments across Australia, are mostly found in high schools. Again, I have to acknowledge that this government is not inactive on this front. It needs, however, to embark on a more comprehensive approach to high school renewal, which could dovetail with the welcome expenditure on infrastructure and technology that is evident in this budget.
I would like to consider a couple of the particular challenges faced by primary schools. As the months go by, we get a glimmer of more language-teaching resources going
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