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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-04-13 Daily Xml
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Better Schools Funding

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister advise the house further how Better Schools funding is supported across the state?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:37): I thank the member for this question. I know that she is a very big advocate for the adequacy of school funding in government and non-government schools. I have in recent months provided members of this house with information about how the Better Schools funding has been making a significant difference for students right across our state.

Every week I hear more and more stories from teachers, principals and parents about how the Gonski funding reforms are having a big impact in their schools. I think this is information that members of this house and the people of South Australia need to hear so that they know exactly what we are fighting for when we campaign for the continuation of the Better Schools funding model.

I would like to share a few more examples about how this money is being used in our state. Peterborough Primary School are using their $83,523 in total funding so far to develop and put in place an intervention and support program for year 1 and 2 students who are identified as being at risk, to support them in reading and maths. They have employed a specific teacher to implement this program, and it is already showing significant impact in terms of their school data.

A category 2 school, Elizabeth North Primary School, has received $678,129 over the three years of Better Schools funding so far. This funding has been used to fund an intervention coordinator at the school, to provide intervention and oversee intervention programs for students requiring additional support, and the school is seeing the benefits. For example, last year, 95 per cent of the students who had attended literacy intervention programs had made progress in their reading levels. This year, there will also be a focus on testing and goal setting with maths intervention.

At Woodville High School, there are a large number of students who are at substantial risk of not completing their SACE due to limited literacy and numeracy skills, and for a wide variety of reasons. Woodville has seen the Better Schools funding as an opportunity to make a significant impact for these students and has invested its $436,878 in funding thus far into programs such as QuickSmart and Levelled Literacy Intervention. Again, they are already seeing improvement in students' abilities, and this is backed up by achievement data, as well as students' and families' own reflections.

Woodville High School principal Meredith Edwards says that their experience suggests that, given just two years' intervention, even the lowest of performers are likely to be able to function as an average maths student. Woodville High School has also seen a significant improvement in SACE completion rates, from 76.3 per cent in 2013 to 89.8 per cent in 2015; that is just in two years.

Meredith Edwards went on to say that she and her school community view the Better Schools funding as 'a matter of social justice and inclusivity. We can only hope that in the interests of social justice the funding is ongoing.' I echo those sentiments and I would like to use those as examples to challenge the suggestion that has been made, both by the federal education minister and also, regrettably, by the Prime Minister, that funding is somehow irrelevant to outcomes in schools.

Further, the Prime Minister also floated the suggestion that perhaps the federal government had no further role to play in public schools in Australia, that it might be left to state government budgets, and that they would fund only independent and Catholic schools. To suggest that, on the one hand, funding is irrelevant to outcome and yet to suggest that the funding they have will be put to those for which, by definition, the majority have at least the capacity to pay tuition fees, is just a remarkable abrogation of responsibility.

Every dollar that has come in, in addition, through the Gonski funding has been used to lift literacy and numeracy, to increase attendance and to increase SACE completion, all of these absolutely essential outcomes, and any government of any political persuasion should take a good hard look at themselves if they think that those matters are not their responsibility and not their concern.

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is called to order. The leader.

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