Page 2125 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2018
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Equally, I am pleased to see the investment in a new high school in Molonglo, and the expansion of capacity across Gungahlin—at Amaroo, Gold Creek, Neville Bonner and Franklin—and the completion of feasibility and planning for a new school in Gungahlin. I do note the comments that Ms Lee made about the fact that these schools have got very full. I think it is worth reflecting on some of the demographic modelling challenges that have arisen, including the fact that the ABS numbers from the 2016 census revealed a significant underestimation had been occurring in Canberra’s population. There are in fact around 10,000 more residents in the city than the ABS had previously been estimating.
There is a detailed reason for this. The difficulty in tracking internal migration within Australia has been the primary problem. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the directorate had been planning on the basis of certain population numbers which need an update at that national level of statistic gathering. There are also some rather interesting demographic factors around the changing patterns of people: how more families are living in apartments. I know from my time as education minister that this had not previously been understood in the demographic modelling. There are some complexities there which I think Ms Lee’s comments did not fairly reflect.
The planning for expansion of the school’s capacity is a crucial step in ensuring that children and young people can get access to the education that they need. That this money is being put into these schools is a very welcome recognition of the fact that we have seen significant population growth in these areas. The government is moving to ensure that the capacity is there in the schools.
One thing that I want to emphasise—I have certainly already started a conversation with Minister Berry about this—is that new ACT schools, certainly where expansions are going, should be built with our net zero greenhouse gas emissions goals in mind. These school buildings are a long-lived infrastructure project. They should be planned from the beginning to minimise energy use and minimise the creation of carbon pollution.
In fact, new schools have the potential to be zero carbon buildings and, with their large roof spaces available for solar panels, to produce more energy than they use. One of the key areas to tackle in the near future is the use of natural gas, especially for heating. Our new schools can be designed to be all electric and in this way make use of the ACT’s 100 per cent renewable electricity rather than continue to use emissions-producing gas.
Investing in the best possible teachers, supporting leadership from our principals and ensuring every student can get the help they need are essentials to the Greens’ policy platform on education and central to the items in the parliamentary agreement. We have long identified that mentoring of teachers is an essential step in ensuring that teachers remain resilient, up-to-date and able to deal with the very challenging role that they perform.
Teachers need to be implementing evidence based pedagogical practice. But it is important that teachers get the kind of support that means they can implement
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