GIFTED AND TALENTED
PROGRAMS — CHINESE STUDENTS
1282. Hon DONNA FARAGHER to the Minister for Education and
Training:
I refer to the answer given to
question without notice 1267 asked yesterday by Hon Simon O'Brien
regarding the new selective program to be offered to gifted Chinese students
and the minister's statement —
If a school does not have capacity to
take the students, the school will not take the students.
(1) How were the schools selected
for participation in the program?
(2) For each of
the participating schools, can the minister advise whether their 2020 gifted
and talented programs are at capacity?
(3) If no to (2), which schools have
the capacity to take additional students?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
Can I just check
whether that was a question without notice?
Hon Donna
Faragher: Yes.
Hon SUE ELLERY: I do not see
how the member thinks I can provide an answer to part (2) without being given
some notice.
(1) Those schools were chosen
because they are the highest performing public academic schools.
Can the member remind me of part
(3)?
Hon Donna
Faragher: If you can't answer part (2), you can't answer
part (3). Are they full or not?
Hon SUE ELLERY: The member is
asking me whether a specific program is full for 2020. I am happy to give the
member the answer to that —
Hon Peter Collier: Will you
base the policy on it?
Hon SUE ELLERY: The policy is that if there is
capacity at the school, the students will be taken.
I am happy to take that on notice
and I will give the member an answer when we sit tomorrow, but the member
cannot expect me to know, across the seven schools, where each one sits on its
program for next year.
Hon Peter Collier: I certainly
would've known that.
Hon SUE ELLERY: Madam
President, can I just make this point in response to the interjection by the
Leader of the Opposition?
The PRESIDENT: Proceed.
Hon
SUE ELLERY: The Leader of the
Opposition, when he was the Leader of the House and Minister for Education,
would regularly give me answers that he could not provide me with the answer
that day, but he would provide the answer as soon as possible.
Hon Peter Collier: Not
without notice!
Hon SUE ELLERY: Most often—regularly
without notice—if I asked that level of detail.
Hon Peter Collier
interjected.
The PRESIDENT: This is not a debate.
Hon SUE ELLERY: My point is I
am happy to answer any question the member asks about that policy. If the
member needed specifics, she just needed to give me some notice, even behind
the Chair, and I could have gotten the numbers for her.