Page 1740 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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be awarded a prestigious MindMatters national award for their school’s involvement in mental health initiatives. A former Marist student was last year chosen as the HIA apprentice of the year and a current student of St Clare’s College who is undertaking an Australian school-based apprenticeship represented the ACT at the national training awards in Sydney earlier this year.
In musical productions, many of us have enjoyed performances by St Mary MacKillop College, Marist College and Merici College students, to name just a few of the many of these colleges to also receive recognition through the prestigious CAT awards. So it is important, not just for this week, that the Assembly recognises the contribution that Catholic schools make to the development of Canberra and the education of its future leaders. It is important that we continue to support choice for parents in schooling.
The theme for this year’s Catholic Schools Week is “A learning adventure, a journey of faith”. Indeed, it is both an adventure and journey of faith for non-government schools in the territory as they continue to defend and justify their right of existence.
We know, for example, that the Australian Greens’ education policies would remove approximately $60 million from ACT non-government schools by diminishing commonwealth government funding. We know their policies would remove freedom of religion by forcing faith-based schools to employ people who do not share their values and we know that they would stop the development of new non-government schools.
What they and other critics of non-government schooling fail to appreciate is that parents have a right to determine their child’s education. Parents want and deserve choice in what is one of the most important decisions they make for their families. Over 40 per cent of parents in the ACT have made such a choice. It is clear that they support choice. Given the success enjoyed by schools such as I have mentioned, it is no coincidence that over the past six years student enrolments at non-government schools have consistently increased.
In the latest February 2011 ACT school census, there were 66,144 students enrolled in ACT public and non-government schools. Interestingly, while government primary schools enjoyed increases, there were drops in high school and special enrolments, leaving a net total increase of 157. By comparison, non-government schools had increased enrolments of 575, with strong growth in independent primary schools—487 or 9.9 per cent—and Catholic colleges, 4.4 per cent.
Catholic schools have also had continuing growth in the number of students with special needs over the past five years. These figures highlight the important and significant role that non-government education plays in the lives of Canberra families.
Opponents of non-government schooling fail to recognise that families who pay for their children’s education at non-government schools are also taxpayers and their schooling choices save the public purse many millions of dollars. This is an oft and conveniently forgotten fact when hardline leftist rhetoric starts. Of course, those same naysayers also believe that non-government schools are only for rich kids with stellar
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