Page 2797 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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As a former education minister, I have a great appreciation for the breadth and the complexity of issues in the education sector in the ACT. I do not intend to speak at length; I simply want to convey three things. One is the Greens’ support for this element of the budget. We think that there is a good quantum of expenditure, it is targeted in the right areas and it provides the support our education system needs.
The key issue I want to touch on is one of capacity. Mr Pettersson mentioned this briefly in his remarks. It is clear that significant population growth in the ACT puts pressure on our schools to provide enough spaces in some key areas. Of course this is not uniform across the city: there are some schools which continue to be below capacity. There are a couple of key areas in particular: Gungahlin, which Mr Pettersson touched on, and also schools in the inner north of Canberra. As we are seeing a change in demographic across our city, our education system needs to keep up with that and be looking at where capacity is needed. Particular areas in my electorate in the inner north are areas where there is significant pressure on capacity, which the government will need to turn its mind to in the very near term.
The last area I want to touch on is the issue of the mental health and wellbeing of our students. Clearly young people are dealing with significant pressure when it comes to their mental wellbeing, with the influence of social media, issues of growing up too fast and the like. This is an important area of investment and development of new initiatives, new ideas and new strategies in the coming years, certainly through my work as the Minister for Mental Health. The office for mental health in particular are doing a piece of work on this that I think will be very important for us in determining future directions. It is an area that future budgets will need to canvass to make sure that we are keeping up and providing young people with the coping skills, the resilience and the support networks to ensure that their mental health and wellbeing is strong and that they are able to progress through their younger years with the support and care that they need or, where they start to struggle, an appropriate response.
Mindful of how important education is for people to have the best chance in life, the Greens are pleased to support this element of the Appropriation Bill.
MR GUPTA (Yerrabi) (4.01): I rise today to speak to the ACT government’s education commitments outlined in the 2019-20 budget. This budget is building for Canberra’s future through education. We are building new schools, expanding existing schools, upgrading classrooms and strengthening our investment in education from early learning through to post-school qualifications. Our community is growing, and our ACT Labor government understands that we need to invest in the infrastructure and services to meet our community’s needs in the future.
In my maiden speech I outlined education as a priority of mine. Education is the greatest tool we have to give Australian citizens a fair go and optimise outcomes for our country. In order to build our future we need to be investing in human capital, and the best way to do that is through skills training and education. It is a key component to increase equity in our country and grow our economy.
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