Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You had me worried then, Rob. The education sector has come together as a whole to support young people being educated in McEwen. There are 10 schools—two catholic and eight government—in my electorate that have pooled their resources in order to give students every chance to succeed. Last November, the minister for school education announced that a consortium of schools in McEwen had been successful in obtaining funding for the Trade Training Centres in Schools program. The Gillard government has committed $2.5 billion over 10 years to enable all secondary students to access vocational education through these trade training centres.

My local school, the Broadford Secondary College, is the lead school in the cluster. The schools have been allocated over $11 million to provide three training hubs in the central ranges area. Other schools involved in the trade training centre are Alexandra Secondary College, Euroa Secondary College, Seymour Special School, St Mary’s College, Wallan Secondary College, Whittlesea Secondary College and Yea High School. The trade training centre will offer qualifications in automotive, engineering, carpentry and joinery, and hospitality. These facilities will allow the schools to better manage any skills shortages with locally trained experts, while creating opportunities and training pathways for our students.

For these reasons and so many more, I support the government’s Schools Assistance Amendment (Financial Assistance) Bill 2011. As I said at the beginning, Labor support education and we will continue to invest in school education, as we always have done. We will continue to fund Catholic and independent schools and undertake this once-in-a-generation review of school funding to ensure that we get it right today, tomorrow and in the future. I support this bill and wish it a speedy passage.

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