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Category: Education / Education Industry / Schools / Budget / Government and Politics / Federal Government

Education Union accuses Government of 'walking away from Gonski'

Sunday, 1 May 2016 15:20:08

The Gonski plan expires in 2019. (AFP: Martin Bureau)

The Australian Education Union has said it is "astonished" the Government will not be matching the funding levels required by Gonski, accusing it of abandoning the children who need the most help.

The Government will pump an extra $1.2 billion into the nation's schools, giving the states funding certainty until 2020.

The pledge partially reverses the 10-year, $30-billion cut to education funding contained in the Abbott government's 2014 budget but falls short of Labor's commitment to fully fund the Gonski plan, which expires in 2019.

But the Australian Education Union's president Correna Haythorpe said it does not go far enough.

"This announcement confirms the Turnbull Government's plans to walk away from Gonski needs-based funding and walk away from those students who need the most help," she said.

"We want to see a full commitment to Gonski funding. [Without it] disadvantaged students and their schools will miss out on vital resources."

External Link: Australian Education Union slams school funding pledge

She said the Gonski funding model was having a positive effect in schools.

"We are seeing the very real benefits for our students with this funding," she said.

Labor has promised to spend an extra $4.5 billion on the nation's schools between 2018 and 2020, fully funding the Gonski agreements it struck when last in office.

Labor's education spokeswoman Kate Ellis said a vote for the Opposition would mean a vote for more school funding.

"At the last election the Liberal Party blatantly lied to the Australian public," she said.

"They claimed that they were on a unity ticket, they claimed that they would match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar. Well this election what Malcolm Turnbull is trying to do is fool the Australian public twice."

But Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has defended the Government's plan, saying education outcomes are not always driven by big spending.

"If you look at the evidence around the world there are a number of countries which spend less than us per student and which achieve much better outcomes," he said.

As part of the Coalition's new education plan, Year 12 students will have to reach a minimum standard of literacy and numeracy skills before leaving school and, within a decade, all students will be required to complete an English or humanities subject and a maths or science subject before attaining an Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR).

It would also link teacher pay to performance, rather than time served, and ensure principals are properly qualified before being appointed.

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