Better Schools Funding

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Is the minister able to identify how many of those 300 staff that are being relocated out of head office are actually going to be placed in schools, and how many are going to be placed in what she described in her previous answer as a single unit to be located somewhere yet to be defined, outside of head office but still in a central location?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:57): Yes, I will return with a detailed answer that has precise numbers attached to it, but I think what we are talking about is a contraction of the head office—an absolute contraction of the head office—a return to schools by some staff, and a unit that will spend more time with schools. So, there is a subtlety in the way in which the support is done. What I would like to clarify—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: What I would like to draw to the house's attention is that one of the very great advantages of our public school system is that it is a system. It has a large number of schools—some 500-plus and about 300 standalone preschools. By it being so large and having such a large-scale presence, we are able to do things that a smaller system or individual schools are not able to do. We are able to take advantage of pooling together some of the people who are focused on particular improvements—

Mr Gardner: What about taking advantage of these people with teaching degrees and putting them in classrooms?

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: One of the pieces of work that was done leading up to a year or two ago was to assist in not only the development of the Australian Curriculum by ACARA but its translation into use in schools. That work having been completed, our focus has moved now to improving teacher quality. As people would be aware, teacher quality is the single most important element that defines the quality of experience for a student. What's essential is that that isn't just left to individual schools and to teachers in individual classes, but that we add value through—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: It is their question time; they can take the time if they wish.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Health is warned.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: It was always clear that we would be both having some people return to schools and that we would also be maintaining a central effort. As I said, this value-add makes a significant difference to the quality of the teaching experience in schools, and we would move that closer to schools. That not only means its relocation from Flinders Street but also that the way in which the staff operate is to spend more time in schools as well as working across the partnerships, as I explained in my previous answer.