Latest news with #BetterandFairerSchoolsAgreement
Sydney Morning Herald
14-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
In Allan's Victoria, pouring concrete is more important than our kids
According to the state government's own calculations, this decision strips from Victorian government schools $2.4 billion in state funding they would otherwise have received. Loading This leaves less money to pay teachers, less money to hire more teachers and less capacity to access the specialised skills and services that schools need to ensure disadvantaged kids don't fall behind. It means that if you are a parent of a kid with a learning difficulty or other disadvantage who started high school in Victoria this year, your child will get bugger all benefit from the grandly titled 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement' recently signed by the state and federal governments. There is $2.5 billion in extra funding on offer from the Commonwealth but, due to Victoria's delay in upholding its end of the bargain, $2.2 billion of this money won't flow into schools until 2031. By this time, a kid who started high school this year will be finished year 12 – if they get that far. The premier's response from platform 9 ¾, a response she later repeated in parliament, was a mix of post-truth Trumpism and home-grown chutzpah. She denied her government had cut funding from state schools, arguing that every year, it has increased total funding. This is both correct and disingenuous. What we didn't hear – or perhaps couldn't because of the passing trains – is any explanation for why the premier, treasurer and other senior ministers who sit on the government's budget and finance committee thought it was reasonable to take the decision they did. Is it because the self-titled Education State doesn't believe in the Gonski reforms? Is it because the government does not believe the benefits to students from fully funding its share of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2028 instead of 2031 are worth $2.4 billion? Or is it because this government doesn't know what it believes any more? After this masthead revealed the government's decision to delay its Gonski commitment, a former Andrews government minister rang to talk about what was going on. They observed that Victoria is starting to experience the opportunity cost of its decade-long obsession with big, expensive transport projects. Loading They reflected: 'What is a Labor government for if it is doing this?' There is a real and pressing need to find savings in the state budget. Treasurer Jaclyn Symes will on Tuesday confirm Victoria's first operating surplus since the pandemic but in real terms, Victoria's finances remain deep in the red. According to the last budget update, the government will spend nearly $40 billion more than the revenue it generates over the next four years. The interest Victoria must pay to service its growing debt is $6.5 billion this year and is tracking towards $10 billion. In Neville Bartos' immortal words to Chopper Read, 'There is no cash here. Here, there's no cash.' But there is always cash for the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop. Or the $26 billion North East Link. Or the proposed, $4 billion upgrade of Sunshine station. In next week's $100 billion budget, one out of every five dollars will go to capital works. The Victorian government, having elevated transport infrastructure into an electoral art-form, has decided that what matters most, even more than public schools, is digging tunnels, pouring concrete and laying tracks. The Education State has become the Hi-Vis State, where you can earn as much as a state school principal by holding a stop-go sign at a Big Build site. The only reason we know about last year's raid on schools funding is there are people working in government who are passionate about the value of education and willing to speak up about it. They don't necessarily think the SRL is a bad idea. They just know a good education will do more than a new train line to help young people get where they want to go.
The Age
14-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
In Allan's Victoria, pouring concrete is more important than our kids
According to the state government's own calculations, this decision strips from Victorian government schools $2.4 billion in state funding they would otherwise have received. Loading This leaves less money to pay teachers, less money to hire more teachers and less capacity to access the specialised skills and services that schools need to ensure disadvantaged kids don't fall behind. It means that if you are a parent of a kid with a learning difficulty or other disadvantage who started high school in Victoria this year, your child will get bugger all benefit from the grandly titled 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement' recently signed by the state and federal governments. There is $2.5 billion in extra funding on offer from the Commonwealth but, due to Victoria's delay in upholding its end of the bargain, $2.2 billion of this money won't flow into schools until 2031. By this time, a kid who started high school this year will be finished year 12 – if they get that far. The premier's response from platform 9 ¾, a response she later repeated in parliament, was a mix of post-truth Trumpism and home-grown chutzpah. She denied her government had cut funding from state schools, arguing that every year, it has increased total funding. This is both correct and disingenuous. What we didn't hear – or perhaps couldn't because of the passing trains – is any explanation for why the premier, treasurer and other senior ministers who sit on the government's budget and finance committee thought it was reasonable to take the decision they did. Is it because the self-titled Education State doesn't believe in the Gonski reforms? Is it because the government does not believe the benefits to students from fully funding its share of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2028 instead of 2031 are worth $2.4 billion? Or is it because this government doesn't know what it believes any more? After this masthead revealed the government's decision to delay its Gonski commitment, a former Andrews government minister rang to talk about what was going on. They observed that Victoria is starting to experience the opportunity cost of its decade-long obsession with big, expensive transport projects. Loading They reflected: 'What is a Labor government for if it is doing this?' There is a real and pressing need to find savings in the state budget. Treasurer Jaclyn Symes will on Tuesday confirm Victoria's first operating surplus since the pandemic but in real terms, Victoria's finances remain deep in the red. According to the last budget update, the government will spend nearly $40 billion more than the revenue it generates over the next four years. The interest Victoria must pay to service its growing debt is $6.5 billion this year and is tracking towards $10 billion. In Neville Bartos' immortal words to Chopper Read, 'There is no cash here. Here, there's no cash.' But there is always cash for the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop. Or the $26 billion North East Link. Or the proposed, $4 billion upgrade of Sunshine station. In next week's $100 billion budget, one out of every five dollars will go to capital works. The Victorian government, having elevated transport infrastructure into an electoral art-form, has decided that what matters most, even more than public schools, is digging tunnels, pouring concrete and laying tracks. The Education State has become the Hi-Vis State, where you can earn as much as a state school principal by holding a stop-go sign at a Big Build site. The only reason we know about last year's raid on schools funding is there are people working in government who are passionate about the value of education and willing to speak up about it. They don't necessarily think the SRL is a bad idea. They just know a good education will do more than a new train line to help young people get where they want to go.
Herald Sun
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Herald Sun
Allan Government won't push for better results in NAPLAN testing
Don't miss out on the headlines from Education. Followed categories will be added to My News. The State Government has refused to aim for nine out of ten students reaching high standards in NAPLAN tests recommended by a key bipartisan parliamentary committee. The government's own targets are less than half as high, with educators instead working towards one third to one half of students reaching the top performance levels in numeracy and literacy. The number one recommendation from the Legislative Council's Legal and Social Issues Committee was for schools to aim for 90 per cent of students achieving the top two NAPLAN bands of 'exceeding' and 'strong'. The committee – which includes Labor figures such as Ryan Batchelor – received more than 270 submissions from experts, teachers and parents for its inquiry into the state education system. The government's response to the inquiry commits instead to reducing the proportion of students in the NAPLAN 'needs additional support category' by ten per cent and increasing the percentage of those in the 'exceeding' category by ten per cent. This follows the national adoption of the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement which ties funding to lifting NAPLAN outcomes, among other goals. The government will also continue with its own NAPLAN benchmarks, which include aiming for 35 per cent of students to be in the top categories for year 5 numeracy, 45 per cent for year 5 reading and 46 per cent for year 3 numeracy. Despite claims about the high performance of Victorian pupils in NAPLAN, students consistently fail to meet the government's own benchmarks around half of the time. Victoria's latest NAPLAN results show up to one in three students are not proficient in reading or numeracy, with the committee's report noting that 'more work needs to be done to curtail the widening gaps between high and low performing cohorts'. The report said the 90 per cent target would 'encourage focused efforts on enhancing teaching quality, providing targeted support for students, and implementing evidence‑based educational strategies to ensure more students reach higher levels of proficiency'. It also noted that it is 'difficult to deduce from NAPLAN results how the state school system – the focus of this Inquiry – is performing'. NAPLAN scales changed from ten to four performance bands in 2023, making long-term comparisons difficult. A Department of Education spokesman said that in 2024, 'Victoria was the top performing jurisdiction in the primary sector, where we were the highest or second-highest performing jurisdiction in 8 out of the 10 measures'. 'We know there is more to be done, which is why we have introduced a new mandated teaching and learning model, including the use of systematic synthetic phonics to teach reading,' he said. Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said the rejection of the key committee recommendation meant 'the Allan Labor Government is avoiding accountability and denying students the world-class education they deserve'. 'Labor cannot manage our education system and Victorian students are paying the price.' The 2025 NAPLAN test period ended on March 31, with more than 1.3 million students taking more than 4.5 million online tests.
