Page 2359 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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12 staff that were promised in the 2004 election campaign, that is 37 staff that were promised and never delivered or taken out and substituted by 17 staff. ACT government high schools are still down a net 20 staff. Those staff are really, really needed in the government school system. I remember at the time saying that the student welfare package was welcome, but what about the primary schools? Mr Barr said, “Mrs Dunne, you are never satisfied.” No, I am not, because while ever we do not address the needs of pastoral care in ACT government primary schools we have a problem.
We have a problem today in government primary schools with children with behavioural problems, and Mr Seselja has spoken that. Dual diagnosis behavioural problems are starting to manifest themselves at younger and younger ages. Children in primary schools can point to their peers and point out who is doing it tough, those who have behavioural problems and those who disrupt their own classes. The teachers do not have the capacity to deal with these children who are disruptive in class. There needs to be a similar sort of student welfare package to deal with difficult children in primary schools as well. What is there is welcome, but it is not sufficient.
There are some initiatives for the non-government school system which are welcome. The initiative to increase indexation is a small start. I know that people in the non-government school system have welcomed that. They are behind the eight ball, and the lack of commitment by the Stanhope government to non-government education in this territory is a well-known and shameful matter.
There is some $1.6 million—$400,000 every year—for disability access to non-government schools, which is also welcome, but that is not new money; that is agency funded so it is not actually new money. I suspect that the non-government school sector will not actually care whether it is appropriated or found in some hollow log in education. One wonders how many other hollow logs there are in education.
The big banner issue is the early childhood education schools. I like the way the Stanhope government always has a catchy title for it. Before we had “smart schools” and now we have got “a better start in life”. Dr Foskey touched on it, and she was sceptical. I get the impression that to some extent she is less of a sceptic than she was, but I think she is not entirely sold on the issue. She expressed some reasons why she was not completely sold on the issue, and they were good ones.
I am concerned for a range of reasons. Firstly, there has been a lot of talk, but there has not been much more than talk. I noted with interest the other day that the minister tabled the advice from GSEC—the Government Schools Education Council—that he received, which is essentially a letter to the minister saying what a good job he is doing in relation to the early childhood schools. But when you read what GSEC says about the early childhood schools and then weigh it up against what you know is actually going on there, I wonder what they were told when the minister attended a GSEC meeting and told them what was going on. I particularly like this:
Community consultation has been a pleasing feature of the development of the concept after its initial announcement. Council believes it is important to keep community groups, including initial focus groups, briefed on ways in which their ideas and suggestions have been incorporated in order to build better processes of collaboration centring on the schools.
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