Annual Report 2010-11 | Department of Education and Training

Director-General's welcome

Hello, I'm Julie Grantham, Director-General of the Queensland Department of Education and Training. Welcome to the department's 2010-11 online annual report which details the many highlights, challenges and achievements of the past financial year.

During 2010-11, Queenslanders faced a series of unprecedented natural disasters. And while the summer will be remembered for the devastation that nature unleashed, history will also record stories that characterise the best of the Queensland spirit.

I am extremely proud of the dedication of staff, students, parents and volunteers who rallied behind our schools and TAFEs after the floods and cyclones. Their efforts enabled the majority of students to return to their classrooms on the first day of the 2011 school year.

This annual report is based on the Department of Education and Training Strategic Plan 2010-2014. Our role, as articulated in the strategic plan, is to provide quality early childhood education and care, and a dynamic education and training system to ensure that all Queenslanders - regardless of their circumstances - have access to opportunities to enhance their personal, social and economic wellbeing and contribute to a vibrant, productive and cohesive Queensland.

During 2010-11, we continued to work towards giving our youngest Queenslanders a flying start to life through a quality early education. The department has continued to make good progress towards meeting the government's commitment to provide up to 240 extra kindergarten services by 2014.

We focussed strongly in 2010-11 on preparing young Queenslanders with the educational foundations they need to support successful transitions to further education, training and work. In March this year, a two-day Principals' Conference provided a wonderful and rare opportunity for principals across the state to get together to discuss our vision for the future of Queensland education.

The department continues to work towards the Queensland Government's Toward Q2 target for three out of four Queenslanders to hold trade, training or tertiary qualifications by 2020. We have seen improvements towards this target with increases in the qualification rates of Queenslanders.

To further assist with this priority, Skills Queensland was established in December 2010, as a statutory authority to provide genuine industry leadership of Queensland's skills and workforce development.

I am pleased to present this Annual Report which details the progress we have made during 2010-11.

I hope that you will take the time to navigate this site and provide feedback, so that we can continue to improve our reporting in the future.