Fifteen minutes with the Minister
By Andie Gatti
April 2009
Education and Training Minister Geoff Wilson.
New Education and Training Minister Geoff Wilson's primary school days recently caught up with him.
His Year 6 teacher Stan Fulker walked into his Ferny Grove electorate office to say hello.
'I hadn't seen him in 40 years,' Mr Wilson said. 'He was in a doctor's surgery with his daughter, who lives in my electorate, picked up the local paper and saw my photo.'
Mr Wilson was pleased to see his former teacher who he says was inspirational.
'He got me from a wee little primary school of about 200 in Culcairn (near Albury in New South Wales) into a regional high school of about 600,' he said.
Like two of the other people who have inspired him, former prime ministers Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies and Australian Labor Party icon Gough Whitlam, Mr Wilson is passionate about education reform.
'I admire them because of their strong interventionist policies reforming education as well as their work for ordinary people in many other areas.'
Mr Wilson has big plans for the state's education system.
'I'd like Queensland to have the highest academic reputation in Australia,' he said.
'I'm very much a practical, hands-on person. I'm very passionate about getting practical outcomes month by month, year by year in the Queensland Government's new agenda of being up there with the best in Australia."
Mr Wilson said there were three main challenges facing education and training today.
'The key challenge is to build the skills base in schooling and vocational education so we maximise the opportunity for young Queenslanders as we come out of this economic recession and the Queensland economy returns to strong growth,' he said.
'We need to have a long-term strategy to build a teaching workforce to provide those educational outcomes.
'And we need to create more opportunities for parent support and involvement by parents in their children's education.'
'I'll be moving heaven and earth to get the best outcomes in three areas -
universal access to childhood education, literacy and numeracy and increasing the number of young people in training or with apprenticeships.'
Mr Wilson, a barrister by profession and a New South Welshman by birth, moved with his family to Queensland in 1989 to work as a union official in the construction industry in Brisbane.
He has been the Member for Ferny Grove for 11 years and was appointed Mines and Energy Minister in 2006. For Mr Wilson's biography, visit the Queensland Parliament 
or the Department of Education and Training websites.
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