Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his contribution, as usual. It is always a pleasure to follow this member, my esteemed colleague on the football field on a Thursday morning. I too rise to speak on the member for Kingston's motion on the National Plan for School Improvement, and I do thank her for bringing this motion to the House. We all, on both sides of politics, readily agree that education is an enormously important part of people's lives.

Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. As we have heard from the contributions today, I think everybody would agree with that sentiment. Everyone should have the opportunity to secure a quality education. Education is liberating. It gives us the knowledge and tools needed to live a prosperous life. As Benjamin Franklin once said, 'Investment in knowledge pays the best interest.'

The disappointing thing about this debate today is that it is focused on money. In the discussion and focus on money it has overlooked some key aspects of what we are really seeking to achieve with education—that is, an improvement in the outcomes of our students. We seek to improve their knowledge and skills as they enter the workforce after leaving school, to allow them to compete in a new global economy. In this regard, education is an essential foundation and a building block for our society to thrive and prosper in that global economy.

It is interesting to note that it was over 60 years ago that education was declared a basic human right for every person and preserved in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Yet today there are millions of children around the world missing out on education. More than 72 million children of primary age are not in school, and some 759 million adults are illiterate and do not have the awareness necessary to improve both their living conditions and those of their children.

While these are global numbers, it is sad to say that there are people in this country who fit into those categories. If students cannot read, then they cannot learn. The ability to read is in itself fundamental to the development of any young mind—and the ability to acquire knowledge, develop their imagination and learn to dream. It is through the ability to exercise that imagination and see genuine hope for the future that they have the motivation to go to school every day and continue to learn, grow and develop.

Thankfully, while we have pointed out various flaws and concerns in this debate over this past half hour, we do, for all intents and purposes, have a decent education system. But it has not been the thriving revolution that was promised by the Prime Minister and this government. The plans to improve basic literacy and numeracy have failed despite some $540 million being spent in this area over the past five years. The independent performance audit concluded that the literacy and numeracy program has yet to make a statistically significant improvement to literacy and numeracy in any state.

Recently, we conducted a survey in our electorate. We surveyed over 1,000 people, and 930 of those responses were that the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic were important. Yet we seem to have ventured off course somewhere because, instead of returning to these basic, fundamental building blocks of education, this basic structure that will improve education outcomes for young people, we have focused on new buildings or a competition and discussion, as we have heard today, about the difference between flagpoles and new buildings. Yet nowhere in this debate have we touched on these fundamental building blocks for the future of the students in our system.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13 : 13 to 16 : 00

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