Page 2239 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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In fact, in 2011 a team of officers from the directorate’s central office were engaged to review the student enrolment capacity of ACT public schools, excluding special schools and preschools. That was 2011. We cannot, as those opposite want, just pick and choose which particular school to pay attention to as the politics of the day dictate. The government must consider the wider system, population movements and the ever-changing needs of more than 40,000 students.
The review involved interstate comparisons, reference to historical practices in the ACT and interviews with over 20 principals across various sectors and school structures. A model was devised and trialled in a number of schools. After review and incorporation of feedback, a model was adapted and applied to most other school settings.
I and the directorate remain committed to ongoing communication with parents, schools and the broader community about these challenges. Here I speak to the point Mr Doszpot was making about needing better communication with parents. As I have said, I have released all of these figures in the spirit of transparency. I have attended parent and citizen council meetings around the unique issues facing our fastest growing region, Gungahlin. And the directorate met with local residents at a community schools forum on 15 February to discuss enrolment pressures, population growth and new school construction. Similarly, I have met with a range of other stakeholders across the school sector and discussed these very issues.
I have personally visited Garran Primary School—a great school that I know has caught the attention of media and the opposition—to hear directly from the school board and the parents’ representatives about their concerns. I can say that the directorate is working closely with Garran school in particular because they, particularly, are right on their capacity threshold. No-one makes any bones about it. It is a very popular school and people want to come there.
There is a range of schools facing enrolment challenges. There are some that have low enrolments. As I said in question time, each of these is supported to develop an enrolment management plan. These plans are developed by the principal, in consultation with the directorate’s capacity working group, managed by the Infrastructure and Capital Works branch, which monitors school capacities and undertakes reviews in accordance with a two-year cycle, and are available for school communities to comment on.
Any adjustment to the priority enrolment area boundary, just one of the many strategies the directorate has at its disposal, can often take up to two to three years before the change occurs, as it requires community consultation and advice to minister of the day.
At Garran, for example, the changed priority enrolment area boundary was foreshadowed from May 2015, and the website was updated in April this year to reflect the approved change prior to enrolments for the 2017 school year. Mr Doszpot made a remark about the additional transportable building that will be sent to Garran. When I went to Garran, I walked around with the chair of the board, the P&C and the school principal. We had quite a discussion. The directorate is taking a number of steps in addition to the transportable building.
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