Page 2769 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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the seams. Two double transportable classrooms were to be in place for term 3 this year. And my latest understanding is that the demountables should be, may be, handed over by the end of this week, which means that they will be just in time for the school holidays to start and for term 4 to begin by the time they get back. One would hope these transportables would have air-conditioning. However, Ngunnawal, built in 1997, is already over its design capacity but transportable additional classrooms will not be available there until 2015.
The concern that the opposition has with all of this is the lack of planning that seems to be occurring. Remember, it was only a few short years ago that the government believed that 39 schools could close or amalgamate. They reduced that number eventually to 23, but it is clear that in some suburbs they simply got it wrong.
We move to 2014, and among the suggested strategies to address enrolment pressure is to reduce the priority enrolment area. That is all very well but it assumes that there are other schools in the area to send children to, and that is not currently the case. It is all very well to suggest that schools like Coombs and Moncrieff will address and reduce the problem, but the problem is here and now. Other strategies include temporary and medium-term capacity increase in the form of transportable and modular classrooms. We have an ageing school infrastructure that has maintenance issues that current budget allocations are not keeping pace with, and we have regional pockets and individual schools that are overpopulated.
How will the government address the current lumpiness in our school population? Is their only response a transportable option, and if the overcrowding is serious they move to a modular solution? Are we creating a Legoland school asset base?
One can only wonder what the school sector could do if it had available the money being spent on light rail. In fact, even the addition of a quarter of the cost of the train set would make an enormous difference. If you are asking families anywhere in Canberra, and even along the golden train set line, whether they would be happy to have a greater investment in their children’s schooling instead of a train set, the answer would be an overwhelming yes to more and better-equipped schools. There are always competing priorities for tax dollars, as the conversation earlier this week about Mr Fluffy homes has shown, but when we have a quality education system put under threat by old, overcrowded, hot classrooms, surely it is time to reassess priorities.
My motion calls on the government to get on the front foot with audits and not just undertake a three-year rolling assessment. It might be better risk management to have more frequent audits of these older schools and those schools that are under capacity pressure. The motion also proposes more active dialogue with the community so that we better understand community needs and references.
Why, for example, does one primary school in a suburb have capacity issues when another in the same suburb and just down the road is only half full? Does the directorate know why some schools are more popular than others, and have they examined and assessed those reasons?
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