Ministerial Statement

EDUCATION POLICY

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:10): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Today I released the 10^th in our series of Building a Stronger South Australia policies—High Quality Education. This follows policies on Future Fund, jobs and skills, public transport, safer policing, transport, housing in the city, premium food and wine, healthy and strong children, and children, technology and gambling.

There are few things more important to our children's future and the future prosperity of our state than providing a high quality education. That is why it matters so much that the number of young people staying at school until year 12 is now at a 10-year high. Our state cannot afford to have almost a—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Leader is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Our state cannot afford to have almost a third of young people dropping out of school early as they were before Labor took office in 2002. With South Australia now leading the nation in young people staying at school to improve their future opportunities, we are now turning our focus to lifting the quality of our education system. We know that, apart from parent support, the single most effective way to lift the quality of our children's education is to lift the quality and status of teachers and leaders.

We want to see our teachers and school leaders regarded as amongst the most important professions in our community and we want those teaching and leading our children to be among the most highly skilled and respected in the world. That is why, as part of this policy, the government has announced that from 2020 all new South Australian teachers will have a masters qualification and further qualifications will be required to become a pre-school director or school principal.

Scholarships of up to $20,000 will also be offered to enable 240 teachers already in schools to undertake a masters, and scholarships of up to $12,000 will be offered to support our emerging leaders to better manage and lead our schools.

Under the policy there will be more specialist public schools to give greater choice to families about their children's education. We will do this by offering grants of $50,000 to encourage more public schools to specialise in an academic field, language or arts. Many schools already specialise and we will work with them to promote this and make it easier for parents to find these schools.

We have also announced our intention to establish a second 1,000 student high school in the city by 2019. The new school, plus the 250 student expansion of Adelaide High School underway, will allow—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier will be seated. Leave has been granted. The members for Adelaide and Heysen are called to order. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The new school, plus the 250 student expansion of Adelaide High School underway, will allow for zoning changes to ensure more young people living in the inner city suburbs can attend a public school in the city. We have made this decision because our vibrant city agenda will lead to thousands more people living in the city in coming years and because we have listened to families in the inner city suburbs who want to send their children to high schools in the city. Expressions of interest will be called for immediately to identify potential sites for the new school.

Today I have also announced, with the vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, our vision for a world leading education precinct at the University of South Australia's Magill campus. Under this proposal a new birth to 12 school will be built on the Magill campus, bringing together school, early childhood services, and special education, and setting South Australia up as a centre of excellence in teacher training. This policy presents a new direction for public education, building on the reforms of the past decade and making sure that South Australia has the kind of high quality public schooling it deserves.

At a time that we are investing in our schools, we hear today that the commonwealth government is seeking to withdraw from its commitments. We have signed agreements with the commonwealth on funding for our schools. We, along with Liberal governments in New South Wales and Victoria, expect our agreements to be fulfilled, and we expect that those opposite will join us in our condemnation of the commonwealth government for its pronouncements today.