Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the legendary member for Tangney for the question. We've got a good education system, but the truth is it could be a lot better and a lot fairer. The NAPLAN results out today are proof of this. What they show is the need for real reform. What they show is that about one in 10 children who sat the test are below the minimum standard that we set for literacy and numeracy. That's across the board.

What it also shows is it's one in three children from poor families, it's one in three children from the bush and it's one in three Indigenous children. What the results don't show but what I want to inform the House is that only 20 per cent of those children who fall behind when they're little catch up by the time they're in year 9, in the middle of high school. As a result, over the last seven years we've seen a drop in the number of children now finishing high school from 85 per cent down to 79 per cent. That's what we've got to fix. That's what we've got to turn around.

That's what the better and fairer schools agreement that I released a couple of weeks ago was all about. I table it for the House and for members. It includes practical reforms like phonics checks and numeracy checks in year 1 to identify, early on, kids who are falling behind. It includes things like evidence based teaching and catch-up tutoring to help those kids who fall behind. I've put an extra $16 billion on the table for our public schools, but it's not a blank cheque; it's tied to these sorts of practical reforms. The Northern Territory has signed up, Western Australia has signed up, and I want to do the same across the country.

Fixing this doesn't start at the school gate. It starts before that. This isn't just about children who fall behind at primary school; it's about kids who start behind when they start school in kindy or in prep. The fact is it's children from poor families who are the least likely to go to early education and care and the most likely to benefit from it. If we want to fix this, if we want to build a truly universal early education and care system, then first we've got to build up the workforce that will ensure this. That's what the 15 per cent pay rise that we announced for early educators is all about, which was opposed by the Liberal Party and opposed by that guy in the Senate—what's his name again?

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