Parliament Speech: Improving Literacy Outcomes for Tasmanian Students
Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Deputy Speaker, I applaud the choice of MPI today by the opposition, but I won’t indulge them with their Rosevears bingo game that they’ve tried to pepper throughout their contributions. I want to focus on education and what the government is doing in response to legacy issues that have dogged our state. I am thinking about retention, thinking about educational outcomes and preparedness for the workplace, and of course, as I always do when I talk about education, I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about literacy.
I’ve noted the attacks throughout this MPI on our minister. Just for people listening and viewing, if they need a bit of decoding about why the Labor Party are behaving this way, it’s because our Minister for Education is also standing for her seat in the May elections. That is a little bit of explanation for why we’re hearing so much free advice about the minister, her character, her ability and her opponent, whose name has been mentioned by members opposite.
Education has been a very significant focus for this government since it was elected in 2014. One minister who’s responded already today, minister Ogilvie, has already touched on a lot of those, and I won’t be repeating those many worthwhile initiatives, but we’ve been making investments in education, including in infrastructure. I talked a fortnight ago about what our schools were like, our high schools that I taught in, and what they’re like now. They’ve been transformed into modern workplaces, a big change. We’ve seen system reforms, many of which are really overdue, and we’ve invested in our workforce.
I heard this sort of unhelpful language from the opposition about unprecedented industrial action. It is industrial action, but one thing it isn’t is unprecedented. We see this periodically. I saw it under a previous Labor-Greens government.
Mr Willie interjecting.
DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order. The honourable Leader of the Opposition still has a couple of warnings for the day.
Mr FERGUSON – I was just advised by a person earlier that in Victoria, under a Labor government, there’s industrial action, and I think schools are being shut down in coming days and weeks, with teachers are going on strike. I just want to leave that to one side for a moment.
We have to invest in education in a way that’s meaningful and purposeful. For me, and I was an educator before politics, this includes improving the reading ability of every student. If you get that right, the other things become possible. Other learnings become sustainable, and future life chances become exciting. The government is approaching literacy under the flagship program Lifting Literacy.
I genuinely believe that there is a quiet revolution happening in education in Tasmania in the government sector, the Catholic sector and the independent sector. It’s being embraced because it’s being led by our minister, by our government. I also want to respect the previous minister, Mr Jaensch, who was a big believer. This could be one of the most significant achievements of this government, but it’s a revolution that’s happening quietly, because when you transform a prep or year 1 cohort of learners’ ability to read, you don’t actually get to see the social improvement for some years down the track, but we’ve always known that investment in the early years pays for itself in the years and decades to follow, but it has to be taught in the right way.
Over 20 years ago, we had a national inquiry into the teaching of literacy. That report, now 20 years old, at the time was largely ignored and even pilloried by education departments and many universities, yet it’s the very approaches recommended back then that are being implemented now.
In the time remaining, I’ll make these points. The approach is supported by evidence. Teachers are using practices shown to be effective about how children learn and they’re supported with training to implement these methods well. Instruction is explicit and intentional. Teachers model these new skills, they explain their thinking and provide lots of examples. The approach is already contributing to improvements in our students’ reading achievement.
Speaker and colleagues, I hope you’ll be pleased that the percentage of year 1 students who have met or exceeded expected phonics achievement has grown. At the end of 2013, 50 per cent of year 1 students had met or exceeded the expected phonics levels and that is now 57 per cent. Our reforms and investment are working.
Time expired.
