Page 1205 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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is simply not true that parents will be forced to relocate their children who are existing school students.
The Education Act 2004, at section 21(3), requires the director-general to “establish procedures that give priority to the enrolment of children in the government school in their neighbourhood”. I will also require the director-general to do this and I completely reject any suggestion that ACT students will be forced to relocate from their existing schools to other areas to receive an education.
But yes it is true that some schools in some regions are experiencing or are projected to experience population pressures. This is due to a range of demographic factors, and the directorate’s response to date and my response going forward will be: population increase is not a static issue and is one we need to constantly monitor. No-one, except perhaps the Canberra Liberals on some social policy issues, stands still in this town. Most of us work hard to stay abreast of change, foster innovation and respond to challenges in a way that sees positive outcomes. Education is a good example of this. I have over the past month interrogated the directorate on a range of issues and found them to be forward thinking and up to the challenges of running a 21st century education system in a city that is rapidly growing and maturing.
Mr Doszpot seeks to make arguments based on decisions taken in 2006 or comments made in 2014, but I am working towards the future needs of our students. I am not seeking to dismiss the impacts of previous governments’ policies but, as the issue at hand refers to the future, I will be focusing on that as well. I will—and I ask members opposite to note—provide to the Assembly projections to 2018, and I will do it with a clear and concise statement that outlines the many strategies the directorate utilises to ensure students’ needs are meet.
But let me be clear on the issue of projections. They are just that. Projections are made using the best data available at the time and are subject to change. Some of us may like to live in a world that has not changed since the 1950s but the realities are that there are so many hard to predict variables that we must constantly keep revisiting the problems and the projections.
At the risk of upsetting those opposite, I would like to touch on some of the less obvious variables that may have affected our past and current projections. I am talking here of the savage cuts to critical analysis institutes, such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which provide such an essential service towards reliable data, massive reductions in the Canberra-based commonwealth public service, economic downturns caused by reduced funding to our Canberra-based national institutions and uncertainty about not only the quantum of commonwealth funding for public schools but even random threats of removing commonwealth funding to public schools altogether. All this and more we have seen from the current federal Liberal government, and all these factors can throw a curve ball into our projections.
But I think there are other more understandable fluctuations. Birth rates, changes in family make-up, new suburbs and the subsequent building of new state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly schools, increased confidence and many more local factors all play a part.
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