House of Assembly Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2) 54 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time School Funding School Funding Mr TEAGUE House of Assembly Heysen School Funding Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is delivering better services for South Australian students, parents and families? The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER House of Assembly Morialta Minister for Education School Funding The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:38): I am very pleased get this question from the member for Heysen— Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Elizabeth is warned twice. The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER House of Assembly The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: —as a local member, as a parent, as somebody who is passionate about schools, indeed public schools, in his area and a passionate advocate for his schools. The Marshall Liberal government has worked hard over the last two years to realise our ambition of supporting every student right across this state to fulfil their potential. As others have said, we are working very hard every day to improve what we can do. A range of particular initiatives is helping us in this, but the focus and the model we are pursuing is a school improvement model that is looking to meet the needs of every school in South Australia. We are working with those schools on their improvement plan, particularly focusing on where we can help them with extra support from the department and where those schools can focus their efforts more effectively. One area that I haven't spoken about so much in this house is the substantial investment that the government has made and the education department has made in improving high-quality world-class professional development opportunities for teachers and leaders. Indeed, I was in the member for Narungga's electorate just last week and we spoke to a principal at one of the small country primary schools in his area who was absolutely beaming and glowing about the opportunity she had had to do a course on instructional leadership, delivered by Harvard University and supported through the education department. Focusing on giving our schools and our students everything they need to deliver world-class whole-school approaches to improving their literacy and their numeracy is critical. Through the work that we are doing and the professional development opportunities that are available, we are really targeting what is going to be evidence based and what will work in supporting schools to meet the needs of all their students. Our schools have been supported through this by increased funding. The agreement that we came to with the federal government not just saw the federal government putting in billions of dollars extra into South Australian schools but required the state Liberal government to put in an extra $700 million into our public school system over the next decade in order to unlock those federal funds. Those resources are being spent wisely and well as we chase down excellence in all our schools across South Australia. We are, of course, particularly interested in the teaching profession and in leadership. I am very pleased to be able to report to the house that 80 per cent of the education department's teaching workforce have indeed voted to accept a 2.35 per cent per year pay rise and 3.35 per cent for leaders, principals and preschool directors. That is enabling us to have the certainty and the security as we go further. I know members across this house are very excited about the enhancements that are being achieved through improved internet services in our schools. I can update the house that 76 per cent of our schools, or 411 of our schools, have now been connected, meaning that 164,259 students in the last 18 months have gone from having their schools with the slowest internet connection speeds in the country on the mainland to the fastest, and that is very exciting. I pay credit to the former minister for instituting a trial of the year 1 phonics check, which I think is transformational in ensuring that early years literacy programs can be rolled out. In our first year in office, as was our longstanding commitment, we rolled that out to all government schools across South Australia. It identified some of the challenges and headwinds that we confront, with 43 per cent of our students meeting the target, meeting the expected achievement level, but within a year that had improved to 52 per cent. We are heading in the right direction and we are heading there at pace. Our teachers, our principals, our leaders, our SSOs and all the staff in our schools are working hard to support our students, and this government stands with them to ensure they can deliver the services our families, students and parents expect from our school system.