Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity today to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008. Unlike some of the issues raised by the previous speaker, I can say that across my electorate, particularly from non-government schools, there has been a great deal of support for and acceptance of the new legislation and indeed some very positive reaction to the new framework for schools funding proposed by the Rudd Labor government. These two pieces of legislation reflect yet another step in the rollout of the education revolution promised to the Australian people by Labor during the 2007 election campaign period. I am delighted to see this legislation introduced into the House. I see it as a critical step in delivering that education revolution, not just in non-government schools but of course ultimately in all schools.

What we will see fundamentally in this legislation is that it will make performance and accountability requirements on non-government schools consistent with requirements for all schools, as indeed envisaged in the national education agreement currently being finalised through the Council of Australian Governments. In March of this year we saw the groundbreaking agreement by the state and Commonwealth governments to develop a set of strategies on some key policy directions in the schools area. Amongst those policy directions were important issues like improving teaching and school leader quality; high standards and expectations; greater accountability and better directed resources; modern, world-class teaching and learning environments, including information and communications technology; integrated strategies for low socioeconomic status schools and communities; and, very importantly, building and boosting parental engagement in our schools. I congratulate COAG on that agreement and I look forward to the development of the final national education agreement hopefully by the end of 2008, which will see all government schools in Australia agree to a single set of objectives, outcomes and outputs and hence educational priorities and reform directions for the education system. It commits all governments, not just the Commonwealth government, to working together to improve the outcomes for all our children and it works towards the reforms and improvements that will deliver a world-class schooling system across Australia.

The Rudd Labor government has established three major priorities for reform, and the Prime Minister spoke about this most recently in his National Press Club address. Those reforms were, firstly, to raise the quality of teaching in our schools; secondly, to ensure that all students are benefiting from schooling, especially in disadvantaged communities; and, finally, to improve transparency and accountability of schools and the school system at all levels. Importantly, in this legislation, consistent with the agreements reached in COAG, is a commitment to ensure that Indigenous funding is guaranteed so that no non-government education providers are worse off under the new arrangements. This is a wonderful agenda for priorities in our schools. It is very clear to me, as I visit the 60-odd schools that I have in the electorate of Hasluck, that the two most important factors in the quality of education in my schools are the quality of leadership provided by the principal and the nature and quality of the teaching staff in those schools. Irrespective of the resources of the school, the quality of the classrooms and the quality of equipment available, nothing is more important than the leadership and quality of the teaching staff in those schools.

I am pleased to see for the first time a step that will bring some consistency to funding for government and non-government schools. The funding framework is about accountability, improvement and consistency across all sectors. It is important for parents as well as policymakers to have some transparency about the needs of the school and the particular quality and effectiveness issues within each school. The principal legislation I talk to today is the Schools Assistance Bill, which gives funding certainty to non-government schools during the period 2009 to 2012 and will apply to them those transparency and accountability requirements that are consistent with government schools. The legislation needs to be dealt with by the parliament at this time to ensure we have appropriated payments in sufficient time for schools to receive them in January 2009.

Previously, Commonwealth government funding, despite the plaintive submissions of the member for Maranoa, has come with a wide range of conditions and strings attached, imposing a multiplicity of commitments and accountability requirements very often complained about by non-government schools for the associated bureaucracy and red tape. This new funding framework will reduce the number of differential and different funding agreements. It will remove many of the input controls and forms of compliance and, instead, we will see, far more productively, something that focuses on payments and accountability of achieved and agreed outputs and outcomes. I hope it will feature simpler, strengthened performance information as well as a reporting framework consistent with the conditions required of the states under the COAG agreement.

An important part of the legislation is the government’s commitment to continuing to use the average government school recurrent costs formula to ensure some equity between the government and non-government sectors. As we know, the process of negotiation with the states continues, but we are reassured that the government will deliver on its election commitment of $42 billion in funding over four years for both government and non-government schools. Each level of government contributes to school funding. The states have the majority of the responsibility for government schools, which they own and manage, and the Commonwealth has been the primary source of public funds for the Catholic and independent schools. When the government school funding from state and Commonwealth sources is combined, it is not the case, as is often suggested to us, that government schools receive less public funding than non-government schools.

Having said all of that, I would be the first to say that the current system of funding has many anomalies in it and, indeed, would argue that it has some flaws. But I think a considerable amount of time has been wasted on the debate between the respective funding of government and non-government schools, and I am really pleased that this framework provides us with an opportunity to shift the debate to where it should be, which is to maximise the resources required for disadvantaged children in disadvantaged schools—in other words, to put behind us the days of arguing over the respective funding merits of government and non-government and, instead, to focus on our kids and the outcomes that they are getting from our schooling system.

That is why I am pleased that the state and Commonwealth government discussions have talked about three new national partnerships which will benefit schools, the first a national partnership to better assist disadvantaged schools, the second a national partnership to improve teacher quality and the third a national partnership to improve literacy and numeracy. In total, some $577 million for improving literacy and numeracy is budgeted in the forward estimates. I look forward to seeing the final amounts for the other partnerships as determined through that COAG process, but I am confident that we will see, contrary to the fears raised by the member for Maranoa, an increase in funding for the education system across Australia.

There are some conditions attached to the non-government funding included in the Schools Assistance Bill. The bill will require as a condition of funding the implementation of the national curriculum in all schools by 2012. The bill will meet Labor’s election commitment to improve transparency in Australian schooling through national testing, easy to understand reporting and public reporting on the performance of schools. Transparency is important for understanding the needs and the performance of Australian schools as well as giving parents the right information about how their child and their school are performing to support them in making the right choices about their schooling. It will also be a valuable guide to government and to policymakers about resources and decision making to ensure the greatest possible effectiveness of and improvement in the system.

I hope that, through this new funding and the transparency of reporting, we will be able to more accurately identify where the greatest educational need is located and encourage excellence in every school. To achieve that we need a basis for fair, consistent and accurate analysis of how different schools are performing. This will include reporting on the results of individual schools in national tests, showing how schools are doing compared to other like schools which share the same student characteristics. Pleasingly, this transparency will apply equally to non-government and government schools.

We have heard much debate about national testing and reporting. All schools, and indeed the school system, must ensure that the national student assessments specified in the regulations are carried out. They must participate in preparing national reports on the outcomes of schooling. They have to provide individual school information covering student background characteristics, literacy and numeracy testing outcomes, year 12 attainment and attendance rates. They have to provide reports to parents, as I said, using plain language, including assessment of the child’s achievement in comparison with the child’s peer group at the school and reports which show student achievement against the national average from the national literacy and numeracy tests. As part of all this, schools have to make publicly available school information, including contextual information about the school and its teachers, parents, key student outcomes, student and teacher satisfaction, and income by funding source. The regulations will specify the required data to report according to student background characteristics such as gender, socioeconomic status, Indigenous background, language background, disability and geographic location. I believe this data will help identify and address the needs of students at risk of educational disadvantage and allow us to make meaningful comparisons, properly assess strengths and weaknesses, understand different patterns of disadvantage, share best practice and innovation, and direct assistance to where it is most needed.

The legislation gives effect also to the Commonwealth government’s commitment to implement its election commitment to continue existing SES funding and also ensures that maximum recurrent funding is automatically provided for schools that are special schools or that meet the criteria for a special assistance school. The legislation does, as the member for Maranoa pointed out, remove the provision for establishment grants. This is a matter that has been discussed in some detail, particularly with Catholic schools. They were fully integrated into the SES funding arrangements in 2005, and frankly there is no longer a need for establishment grants as we have experienced them in the past. The legislation continues to provide for the approval of new non-government schools in the non-government school system, and I hope that this will facilitate reform in the schools sector and provide an improved oversight of educational accountability and financial stability of non-government schools. As I say, I think this may also encourage better reporting and consistent implementation of Commonwealth initiatives, adherence to the legislative framework, achievement of the national goals for schooling, and ensure the viability and provision of schools in poorer and remote areas.

The legislation also touches on a number of other programs and seeks to appropriate funding for those programs. In many cases this will align arrangements in the non-government school sector with those currently applying in the government sector. I am also pleased to see supplementary assistance for Indigenous students at non-government schools, which is directed at helping to ‘close the gap’ in educational outcomes, will also be available. Programs under this funding may include homework centres, tutorial assistance and English as a second language for Indigenous language speakers amongst others. As I said at the outset of my speech, these two bills represent another step in the implementation of Labor’s education revolution. I have referred already to the historic COAG agreement reached in March this year. Most members would be aware of funding commitments already made to literacy and numeracy, to national curriculum development and to improvements and strategies in the area of the quality of teaching.

We have seen the beginning of the rollout of computers in schools. We have also seen the commencement of the trade training centres in schools program, a very comprehensive implementation of substantial changes to the Australian education system. It is my firm belief that one of the reasons why the Rudd government was indeed elected in November 2007 was its strong commitment to an education revolution. Australians want better education services in our nation and they want those services to be well resourced. They know the best way to ensure real opportunities for all Australians is to start with a good education and they want every child in Australia to have the chance of a quality education. They want investment in the early years of a child’s development, and I am very pleased to see the meeting of the new early childhood round table today in Canberra. They want higher quality, affordable schools—whether those schools are community, government or private—with great teachers, good discipline and sufficient resources to get the job done.

Too much time has been wasted in this country on debating the respective merits of and funding levels for schools based on whether they are government or non-government schools. We all know it is important to have a strong, well-resourced government school sector; but equally it is important to have a strong, well-resourced non-government school sector. This debate has not been assisted by flawed funding approaches in the past that have created unfortunate and inequitable anomalies. It is my great hope that this step, along with the introduction of the COAG national framework, will see the end of that debate and a focus instead on ensuring quality education for all our children and a schooling system that is about excellence and equity.

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