Latest news with #SchoolingResourceStandard
The Age
20-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
A Groundhog Day budget, without the laughs
New treasurer, new(ish) premier, same old story. Jaclyn Symes' first budget repeated this government's previous inaction on its rising debt, forecast to reach $188 billion by June 2028. The following year, debt is forecast to reach $194 billion, 24.9 per cent of gross state product. This was Groundhog Day, without the laughs. The budget again reprised the government's lack of enthusiasm for significant reform, even in the face of its significant challenges. Once more, too, Premier Jacinta Allan has stuck to an increasingly Pollyanna approach to infrastructure spending. The mantra of both the premier and Symes was that they were 'focused on what matters most'. Given the state's massive and still-growing debt, Victorians might have expected that is where the focus would sit. Not at all. What mattered most to Allan and Symes, the headline act, was the surplus. In 2025-26, the government is expecting to deliver an operating surplus of $600 million, about $1 billion less than it forecast six months ago. This is projected to rise each year of the forward estimates to $6.2 billion, $7.9 billion, $6.6 billion and $5.8 billion. The $600 million is the first operating surplus since before the COVID pandemic. As Symes said on Tuesday, numbers don't tell the full story. This cuts both ways. The treasurer was at pains to highlight the measures the government is providing to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Free public transport for kids (worth $318 million), free weekend travel for seniors, free kinder care for three- and four-year-olds and $123 million to parents to help with school costs will no doubt be welcomed by recipients. Weighed against this is the fact Victoria reneged on a commitment to fund by 2028 its full 75 per cent share of the Schooling Resource Standard, meaning $2.4 billion will be stripped from government schools. It's a similar story in health, where an extra $11.1 billion will go into the system over the next four years. Of this, $9.3 billion will go to hospital operating costs and $643 million will be for nine new and upgraded hospitals, including Footscray and Frankston hospitals. Many in the sector will see this as catch-up spending to fend off a damaging feud at a time when they are struggling to keep basic programs running. The much-needed top-up to regional roads funding will also be viewed in a similar light. More, if limited, energy bill assistance to households, and more money for food charities, homelessness and those facing financial stress will help at the margins.
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.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Teachers on collision course with state government over school funding
A showdown is looming between Victorian teachers and the Allan government over school funding after the education union described a decision to delay money needed to deliver the Gonski reforms by three years as a 'disaster for public school staff and students'. Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Justin Mullaly said the revelation the Allan government had secretly delayed its commitment from 2028 to 2031 and, in the process, stripped $2.4 billion out of public schools, underscored the widening gap in teacher pay and staffing levels between Victoria and other states. 'We are the lowest-funded schools in the country, and we are the lowest-paid teachers in the country,' Mullaly said. 'Victoria has to be well and truly on the way to getting to that original commitment by 2028. 'Otherwise, it just won't happen. That is going to be a disaster for public school staff and students.' Victoria previously had a publicly stated target of fully funding its share of the Gonski school funding reforms by 2028. This requires the state to provide government schools 75 per cent of the total funding they are allocated under a needs-based model knows as the Schooling Resource Standard. The federal government has agreed to provide the remaining 25 per cent once the states reach this benchmark. Confidential documents seen by this masthead show that in March 2024, in the lead-up to last year's state budget, the Victorian government abandoned its commitment and, under a revised timeline, won't fully fund public schools until 2031. This means that, between this year and 2031, Victorian schools will receive $2.4 billion less in state government funding than they otherwise would have. They will also receive less money from the Commonwealth.
The Age
12-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Teachers on collision course with state government over school funding
A showdown is looming between Victorian teachers and the Allan government over school funding after the education union described a decision to delay money needed to deliver the Gonski reforms by three years as a 'disaster for public school staff and students'. Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Justin Mullaly said the revelation the Allan government had secretly delayed its commitment from 2028 to 2031 and, in the process, stripped $2.4 billion out of public schools, underscored the widening gap in teacher pay and staffing levels between Victoria and other states. 'We are the lowest-funded schools in the country, and we are the lowest-paid teachers in the country,' Mullaly said. 'Victoria has to be well and truly on the way to getting to that original commitment by 2028. 'Otherwise, it just won't happen. That is going to be a disaster for public school staff and students.' Victoria previously had a publicly stated target of fully funding its share of the Gonski school funding reforms by 2028. This requires the state to provide government schools 75 per cent of the total funding they are allocated under a needs-based model knows as the Schooling Resource Standard. The federal government has agreed to provide the remaining 25 per cent once the states reach this benchmark. Confidential documents seen by this masthead show that in March 2024, in the lead-up to last year's state budget, the Victorian government abandoned its commitment and, under a revised timeline, won't fully fund public schools until 2031. This means that, between this year and 2031, Victorian schools will receive $2.4 billion less in state government funding than they otherwise would have. They will also receive less money from the Commonwealth.
