Page 757 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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MR BARR: I thank Ms Hunter for the question. From the outset, it is worth noting that in establishing a new school you would anticipate that the bulk of enrolments in a new school are going to be in the early years. For example, and we were debating this in this chamber only last year and earlier this year in relation to the Kingsford Smith school, the bulk of the enrolments in the high school component of Kingsford Smith were in year 7, because those students will be able to complete their four years of high school education at the one school. It is unlikely that students and parents would choose to enrol in year 2 in that school and stay for one year.
It has always been the expectation of the government—and of the schools themselves and the education community, who overwhelmingly support the provision of early childhood education and dedicated early childhood schools—that it will take time to build up. You would anticipate, as has been the case, that the bulk of the enrolments in the new P-2 schools would be in preschool and kindergarten. Next year, the current preschoolers will move into kindergarten and kindergarten students into year 1. The year after that, they will move on to year 2.
In terms of the specific instance of Lyons, one of the significant factors in relation to enrolments at that school is the fact that the development of that school, particularly all of the infrastructure works, was delayed until the end of the 2008 school year as a result of community consultation. I acknowledge the role Mrs Dunne played in that community consultation. It was not entirely constructive, but nonetheless she decided she wanted to have one last dig—one last dig at me and one last dig at the government. So the completion of works at Lyons will be during the balance of this school year. It is anticipated, on the basis of the childcare expressions of interest, that the enrolments at the preschool and in the kindergarten at that school will build up over time. But it is always going to be a smaller environment in a larger primary school. That was always the intention.
The government remains firmly committed to early childhood schools. For all of the carping from Mrs Dunne throughout this process, she refuses to acknowledge two significant points. One is the strong level of education research that supports early childhood education and the strong level of education stakeholder support for these schools. And in relation to the Lyons school and the Italian bilingual immersion program that Mrs Dunne has a personal interest in, it has moved to Yarralumla primary school and there are more students involved in the program at Yarralumla than were ever involved at Lyons. That program now has the chance to grow, which it was not doing at Lyons. It was stagnating at Lyons. It now has the opportunity to grow at Yarralumla. Yarralumla is now offering a language other than English, so there is a win for that school community as well.
All of this has been achieved in spite of the negative carping and constant talking down of the education system and these schools that we have heard from Mrs Dunne over this entire debate. It is no wonder that she has been replaced as the shadow education spokesperson.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Hunter, is there a supplementary question?
MS HUNTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In his answer, the minister for education talked about how these numbers will build up over time. What I would like to ask as a
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