Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thousands of school students across my electorate started back at school last week, all excited. There were some nervous parents at the school gates as well. But one of the things that really hit home for a number of the parents of school students, the staff and the teachers was that this would be the last year of guaranteed Gonski funding, which is the needs based funding that was introduced by the former Labor government to ensure that every school had the resources and the funding that it needed to educate our youngest Australians, our schoolchildren.

Just to demonstrate the amount that is being cut by this government from next year: Bendigo Senior Secondary College, which is the largest school that delivers VCE in the state of Victoria, will lose $1.6 million in funding next year. The following year, in 2018, it will lose $1.9 million in funding. The principal spoke out about this last week at the front of his school. He said it creates uncertainty for students; it creates uncertainty for families; and it creates uncertainty for his teachers and for the courses that they are delivering.

You have to ask yourself what programs will be cut because this government has scrapped the needs based funding which was committed by the former government. It is not just our big schools like Senior Secondary that will be hit hard by the government's funding cuts. Small schools like Elmore Primary School and Axedale Primary School will lose $100,000 each. That may not sound a lot to some of our biggest schools, to some of our wealthiest schools in Melbourne metro areas, but to Axedale Primary School, which has 99 local children, and to Elmore Primary School, which has fewer than 50 children, $100,000 is a lot. It helps to pay for integration aides. It helps to pay for their sports programs, and it helps to pay for their art programs. All of these programs are now at risk because this government has cut the needs based funding which is necessary for these schools.

Other programs at risk are the NETschool program and the SWITCh program, programs that help kids who are not currently engaged in education to re-engage. These are students who stop attending schools, the school nonattenders. These programs get them back into school and back into the classroom and have been incredibly successful, with the Crusoe College SWITCh program ensuring that 60 students stayed in school and returned to mainstream schooling this year.

The government has a chance in the upcoming budget to reverse the ideology, to reverse these cuts and to restore the funding: $26 million to Bendigo electorate schools.

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