Our submission is in
After months of preparation, our submission in response to the ACT Government’s “Towards 2020″ proposal is complete. Many thanks to all who wrote sections, edited and gave feedback - it made a great difference. Now we have to wait for the Government to process this and hopefully rethink their proposal.
You can download it here - Tharwa School Submission
The process has been very difficult and less than ideal. The strain and stress placed on the community could have been avoided by talking to the community first before proposing (and naming) 39 Schools and PreSchools that will close. It all seems a bit unnecesary to save $10 million a year (after all 39 are closed). Closing 20 Preschools to save $500,000 seems a crime, when all the research shows a good early childhood foundation prevents many of the social issues we struggle with later.
Any one of the community clubs could probably sponsor all these preschools from the proceeds of the poker machines. What better way to invest in the future of communities by providing opportunities for our youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. There is a small amount of irony if public education turned to proceeds from gambling to survive. Certainly it is struggling to survive under the largess of the the government. Lucky our rates have gone up to cover the short fall.
Not many people are reading this blog at the moment, but it is important that in the next month we continue to pressure those charged with leading the community to do what is right, and not just on a shallow fiscal dimension.
Continue to fight the good fight, its the only one worth fighting for.
Thanks again to all the contributers