Page 2242 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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was around the 2016 schools capacity, the enrolment projections for future years and explanations for changes in the methodology in quantifying school capacity.
This information was also provided publicly, as he says, on the Education Directorate website and received coverage in multiple news outlets. Like the minister, I have to say that I was a little surprised to see in the motion from Mr Doszpot a request for the same information only one sitting after it was provided to all members and made available to the public.
The minister made references to the LSU being counted as part of the methodology. I think that is the right way to go. Certainly the Labor Party and the government see that every child should be counted and their learning spaces should be counted and treated of equal value. That is this government’s commitment to those children, that every child, regardless of how they learn or where they learn, will be treated with equal value.
However, I will always welcome a conversation about the importance of planning and investing and providing high quality public education for Canberra. As the minister has indicated, the ACT government is going far beyond just talking to parents about enrolments at schools. As a government we have been committed to making sure that parents are able to be fully engaged with their school community and with their child’s learning.
As a busy single parent, I understand how difficult this can be in practice and the extraordinary lengths that many teachers in the ACT education system take to ensure that every child in their classroom can experience the benefits that come from having their parents engaged in their learning. That is why in the 2016-17 budget, the ACT government committed $10 million to a streamlined business management system that will make interaction with schools simpler for parents out in the community.
In that same budget we committed to a significant infrastructure plan that responds to the needs that have been highlighted by the data that the minister presented to this place in a previous sitting. This includes the expansion of Harrison School, Neville Bonner Primary School, Amaroo School and Palmerston preschool in Gungahlin where population growth is creating demand for more school facilities. We have also committed to better preschool facilities at Hawker and Weetangera where there is increasing demand for public education.
In Belconnen this adds to the recent funding to improve Belconnen High School and Latham Primary, as well as a significant commitment that would have expanded the capacity at Macgregor Primary School. The Macgregor Primary School example probably set the tone for the ACT government in conversations with the school community conducted by the previous minister for education, Joy Burch.
She had the same kinds of conversations that the minister has referred to today—going out to the school and finding out what the school’s needs were, what the school’s parents and community wanted provided at that school. That school had a significant upgrade because there were more families and a number more children growing up in west Belconnen. So the expansions to Macgregor Primary School met those people’s needs.
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