Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, this is another disappointing budget when it comes to education, particularly in the way that it locks in cuts to public schooling. The government has restored funding to Catholic and independent schools and we on this side have welcomed that restoration of funding. What's critically missing from this budget, though, is the restoration of funding cuts from public schools. So, while 99 per cent of private schools will reach or exceed 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard under this formula, public schools in seven states and territories will never, never reach their fair funding level. On average, this means that states will miss out on about $6,500 per student by the end of this parliament.

Since 2017 there's been no Commonwealth funding for capital improvements to public schools despite enrolments in public schools increasing by about 150,000 students in the last five years. The minister was boasting about a $30 million fund for school projects. On this side, at the last election we committed $260 million for school upgrades across Australia, including projects like the science labs at Mount Eliza Secondary College in the electorate of Dunkley.

An ABC report just recently showed that, between 2013 and 2017, the four richest schools in the country—the four richest schools in the country!—spent more on facilities and renovations than the poorest 1,800 schools combined.

Disability funding for students went backwards in five states and territories—the ACT, the Northern Territory, WA, South Australia and Tasmania—between 2017 and 2018, while, of course, in contrast, Labor would have invested an extra $300 million. In the six years that this government has been in office—enough time for a student to start and finish high school—NAPLAN results have been going backwards in many areas. We have seen falling scores in international tests as well—literacy, numeracy and science tests. On some measures Russia, Estonia, Vietnam and many other countries have overtaken us. Combined with the fact that the mark you need to get into initial teacher education continues to fall it is not a pretty picture. Countries such as Singapore and Finland, with highly successful education systems, aim to take their teachers from the top 30 per cent of academic achievers. We see them consistently performing better than Australian students in many of these international tests because they are attracting and retaining high-performing students into teaching. That shows how important the work is. It shows how much we respect and value our teachers when we target the best students to draw them into teaching so they can teach the next generation.

We need to have a proper evidence based approach to make sure we're using international best practice. And 18 months since the so-called Gonski 2.0 review, where the previous education minister said he was prepared to accept all of the recommendations of the review, it is very difficult to see where those improvements have happened. One of the improvements that has been consistently argued for, not just in the Gonski 2.0 review but by Labor and many others in the education sector, is to have an evidence institute for schools. We know, for example, that we use evidence all the time in our health system to improve clinical outcomes for patients. Patients who are on a clinical trial do better than other patients because they are closely observed, closely monitored and getting the best and newest state-of-the-art intervention. Why aren't we doing the same for our schools?

I'd like to ask the minister why he has not yet allocated any funding for an evidence institute. In contrast, Labor allocated $280 million for an evidence institute for schools. The government have said they support the initiative. If they genuinely do support the initiative, it would be terrific to see some of the funding provided for it.

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