School Funding

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:53): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister update the house on how South Australian students are benefiting from investment in education right across our state?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:54): It's a great pleasure to have this question from the member for Newland, who is a regular caller and correspondent in relation to supporting students, schools and preschools in his area. I am sure that he is as excited as many of them will be. From Banksia Park to Kersbrook, from Ardtornish to Modbury, all the public schools and preschools in his seat, and indeed around South Australia, will benefit from the budget handed down yesterday in terms of $30,000 grants for every preschool in the government system in this state.

This builds on the work of the $20,000 grants which they have been happily spending over the last four or five months since we announced that first round for urgent maintenance projects or ways to lift the preschool. For every school, there is a grant between $20,000 and $100,000, with the quantum of the grant dependent on a number of things: the size of the school and particularly whether the school has missed out on other recent infrastructure projects. We'll be providing that information to schools and indeed members of parliament soon.

I know the member for Newland has done this actually because I have been with him when he did it, but can I encourage every member of parliament to reach out to your preschools and learn about some of the amazing work that they've been doing with those modest grants of $20,000—but, nevertheless, important and significant—that have enabled urgent construction work or maintenance work to be done, which they value tremendously and lifts the work that is done in those preschools and schools.

Beyond this week's budget—which, of course, also provided a further opportunity for non-government schools to also leverage the non-government schools grants and loans scheme, which was established before the election and an extension of that has been welcomed—there are some dramatic improvements that have happened in education. The member asked not just about the investment—the input, if you like—but also about the benefits, the outcomes in education.

Of course, that is something that our government takes seriously, not just what we put in, although I identify we have dramatically increased recurrent funding in education and we have dramatically increased capital funding in education—both are at well and truly record levels and well and truly above the settings and the quantums announced by our predecessors before they left—but also how that money is spent is perhaps as important if not more important, and the outcomes to be achieved.

The investments that we have made are in the places where it matters in education, in things that will lift educational performance to help us fulfil our objective to support every student in every classroom in every school in every town and suburb in this state to fulfil their potential, to lead successful lives where they can find the thing that they are passionate about and love doing in their life and do that and go after it and succeed in it and live their best lives.

That means investing in literacy and numeracy programs in the early years. I gave credit at the press conference last week and I have given credit in this house before to the former minister, the member for Port Adelaide, for instigating a trial of the year 1 phonics check, the first state government to do so in 2017. That was a worthy trial. The opposition (us at the time) were supportive of that and we were supportive of a rollout. I was pleased that before the election, the Xenophon party committed to a further trial but the Labor Party also agreed to roll it out to all schools. That has happened, and that has seen early years literacy achievement grow dramatically in the two years since we introduced it in 2018.

But that means that the language program, the Aboriginal education program, the music education program, the entrepreneurial education program, the VET reforms for vocational education—all of those other things—are having dramatic impacts; students are benefiting, schools are benefiting, and that means that the people of South Australia will benefit for many years to come.