Education Minister Sarah Courtney's performance in Budget Estimates hearings today was alarming, with the Minister dodging and refusing to answer important questions for Tasmanian families, students and school staff.
Shadow Minister for Education and Early Years Josh Willie said it was shocking how much Ms Courtney did not know - or simply refused to answer - considering she had been on the job for more than four months now.
"While there are multiple issues - alarming issues – across schools in Tasmania, Ms Courtney either doesn't know about them or is merely refusing to acknowledge them," Mr Willie said.
"Despite remote learning during the COVID lockdown last year, Tasmania is still seeing significant incidents of violence against students and teachers and we are still seeing large numbers of students - some of them in prep and kindy - being suspended.
"Yet Ms Courtney has no answers as to why and, critically, no answer as to what she is going to do to curb school violence, address the rates of student suspensions, make a safer environment for students and teachers or address significant absenteeism.
"Ms Courtney couldn't answer how many students with a disability are in Tasmanian schools. How on earth can she be across what is needed to support their learning if she doesn't know the basic facts?
"It's just extraordinary that Ms Courtney cannot - or refuses to - provide answers to questions that should be at her fingertips around school infrastructure and important issues such as the number of psychologists in schools or how long students are waiting to see psychologists, speech pathologists, social workers and occupational therapists.
"It's extraordinary how she needed to defer to Education Department bureaucrats during today's hearings and it's astonishing the number of questions she deflected from by taking them on notice.
"There are important issues across Tasmanian schools that require solutions and Tasmania requires a Minister who is willing to address those issues."
Josh Willie MLC
Shadow Minister for Education and Early Years
