Selective High Schools

Mr DAVID HARRIS: My question is to the Premier. What is the latest information on the Government's commitment to deliver more selective high school places, and related matters?

Mr NATHAN REES: My Government is about providing more opportunities for all students, including the most academically gifted and talented. Some 46 high schools with selective classes now operate across New South Wales. Coming into last year's election we made an election commitment to provide another 600 selective places in our high schools. Today I am delighted to inform the House that we are not just going to make that commitment, we are going to exceed it. I can inform the House that 630 new selective school places will be made available at 14 comprehensive high schools across New South Wales, from south-western Sydney to the North Coast. Our Opportunities to Specialise Plan recognises that the most academically gifted students are spread throughout Sydney and across New South Wales, and the Government is ensuring they are catered for, be they in the city or in the bush. That is why a new virtual selective class will also be established in western New South Wales and will offer 30 of the additional 630 selective school places.

That school will use new technology to allow gifted and talented students in that region to form a learning community with their city cousins. These 630 new places will boost the total number of selective places in the State's public schools to 4,152. The new selective classes will be in place and ready for year 7 students in 2010. When deciding where to allocate the extra places, the Government has spoken at length with principals, staff, parents and the community. I am pleased to announce that the locations are Parramatta High School, Blacktown Girls High School and Blacktown Boys High School, Elizabeth Macarthur High School in Camden, Bonnyrigg High School—

[Interruption]

Bonnyrigg is hardly marginal. The locations also include Prairiewood High School, Moorebank High School, Karabar High School in Queanbeyan, Gorokan High School on the Central Coast, Kooringal High School at Wagga Wagga, Grafton High School, Armidale High School, Duval High School in Armidale and Peel High School in Tamworth. We are especially excited about the new virtual selective class in western New South Wales. This will give gifted and talented students in remote and rural areas the ability to undertake a selective program in their communities whilst remaining at their local comprehensive high school. These students will benefit from access to a higher range of options in core subjects. The virtual classroom will also take advantage of the Government's Connected Classrooms Program. This morning I talked to the impressive students at Peel High School in Tamworth through their virtual classroom arrangement. I spoke to a budding environmental scientist, who had just returned from a study visit to New Zealand. I spoke to an indigenous leader, who will be an important member of her community for decades to come.

[Interruption]

If you want to talk Treasurers, let us talk about the member for Vaucluse, because the local paper reports of his desire to return to the Opposition frontbench—but enough of the asides.

The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.

Mr Wayne Merton: How many have you got who want to go back to yours?

Mr NATHAN REES: You have got a good memory.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Baulkham Hills will cease interjecting.

Mr NATHAN REES: I also literally spoke to two future rocket scientists, Thomas Bowden and Russell Hooper. These two Peel High students are off to the United States to visit NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, this month. This is genuinely exciting stuff. New South Wales is leading the way in supporting gifted and talented students by offering them a wide range of programs. We have opportunity classes in primary schools, fully and partially selective high schools, and gifted and talented programs in primary and comprehensive high schools. About 10 per cent of public school students are involved in a gifted and talented program. Selective high schools are a popular choice for New South Wales parents and they contributed to New South Wales government schools, filling seven of the top 10 positions in the table after last year's Higher School Certificate.

We have received more than 13,328 enrolments in selective schools for year 7 next year. New South Wales schools and students are leading our nation. As the Minister the Education and Training informed the House yesterday, our students scored well above the Australian average in every subject and for every age group tested in the recent National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN] tests. These results come on top of a separate recent OECD study ranking New South Wales 15-year-olds among the best in the world in reading, mathematics and science. These statistical measures illustrate the quality of public schools in New South Wales and these extra selective places illustrate this Government's commitment to providing equity for remote and disadvantaged communities, fostering academic excellence for all and working to boost our public schools.