The Tasmanian Liberals believe that by extending high schools through to year 12, we can begin to improve retention and make sure Tasmanians have the skills and qualifications to succeed.
The fact that the Government wants to talk about our visionary high schools policy just highlights their own lack of ideas to improve our education system. In fact the only education reform they are currently considering is how many schools to shut down.
The Government has criticised our policy today, bizarrely claiming that it will lead to an increase in the number of students attending high school. Of course it will lead to an increase in the number of students, that’s the whole point of our school retention policy.
It’s disappointing that the Government would view more students staying at school as a negative, but it simply shows how out of touch they are.
More students would require more investment in school infrastructure. That’s why in our Alternative Budget we identified $60 million that would be used to invest in our schools.
Our plan would see high schools gradually extend to year 12 over a 10 year period starting with regional and rural communities where school retention is a significant issue.
This isn’t the sort of reform that you can rush and it has to be done in consultation with the community. We have already begun the consultation process and have been pleased with the positive response, including support from the University of Tasmania.
We make no apologies about wanting to improve the education standards of our students – unlike Labor and the Greens, who are apparently satisfied with us having the lowest year 12 completion rates in the country.
We want to grow the economy, and key to that is to improving Tasmania’s education standards, which are currently at the bottom of the ladder.
It is no coincidence that we are the only state in the country where high school ends at year 10 – and we have the lowest year 12 completion rate.
As we’ve consistently said, no colleges will close, but their functions may change – for example, some may remain focused on years 11 and 12, others might cater for years 9-12 and others might become 7-12 high schools.
Instead of trying to take the cheap shot, the Government should outline precisely how they are going to improve school retention rates after 13 years of failure and a litany of disastrous education system experiments.
