Education Department fails Peninsula's students

The Carr-Watkin's Department of Education and Training (DET) has failed to provide a duty of care to the students in public schools on the Peninsula.

While politicians conduct the business of government in luxurious conditions, students in public schools on the Peninsula are condemned to the bare essentials by an uncaring government.

Politicians work in air-conditioned offices occupied generally by no more than five people at a time.

Peninsula students are squashed into small sweatboxes called demountable classrooms for 200 days a year.

Temperatures in these rooms regularly exceed 30 degrees and range up to the mid-40s.

Up to 30 children, as young as four and a half, are expected to learn in these rooms on a regular basis and up to 60 are crammed in on wet weather days during lunch times.

Schools themselves are overcrowded.

The Carr-Watkin's DET has failed to keep pace with population trends.

Governments are responsible for the maintenance of school sites.

Yet when, due to overcrowding, a playground is reduced to a dustbowl the school is expected to use funds earmarked for educational purposes to repair the situation.

When these funds are insufficient, the school's P&C are expected to raise the shortfall.

Peninsula and nearby schools have experienced this in the past.

This government has failed to acknowledge the increased workload that its policies, including the introduction of computers in schools, have caused for clerical staff in schools.

Schools are increasingly being expected to conduct best business practice of accountability but are deprived of the funds and personnel to fulfil these expectations.

Every primary school on the Peninsula needs one more full time clerical assistant.

The DET has offered three hours per week in large schools, which fails to meet the 30 hours per week needed.

NSW DET representatives were shown to be dishonest when representing the advantages of forming Brisbane Waters Secondary College.

Parents were told that the changes were for the benefit of the students and were supported by study papers.

This was shown not to be the case.

Community consultation was shown to be a sham.

As a result BWSC Umina Campus will eventually house up to 1200 students with higher than previous need for welfare support.

With the move to collegiate high schools, the greatest loss will be the community from what were once community high schools.

The Carr-Watkins DET has failed to realise that trotting out more computers is not an education policy in itself.

Faster access is a farce when the network cannot be maintained.

Giving teachers laptops where there is no need is an extravagant waste.

The DET has failed to acknowledge the pressures on teachers and children in hot/cold, overcrowded classrooms, trying to cope with and indecent pace of change and an overcrowded curriculum.

This government is too comfortable to care.

It needs to be scared and shocked into making education in this state a priority.

Don't listen to what they say, look at what they do!

Support the Vinson Enquiry Into Public Education's recommendations.

Support your children, your grandchildren, your neighbours' kids, and the kids up the road.

They are all the future.

Stephen Laming, Horsfield Bay