David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House what is happening with the National Secondary School Computer Fund?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for his interest in having state-of-the-art technology in our schools. The government’s National Secondary School Computer Fund is about benefiting every secondary school in the country, whatever state they are in, whatever territory they are in, whatever school sector they are in. If I could put that in the words of Mr Bill Daniels, Executive Director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, the government’s plan:

... recognises that all schools, government and non-government need support to access state of the art computer technology ...

This is a fund that will benefit all schools. This is a fund dedicated to realising the government’s vision of a digital education revolution so that secondary students in years 9 to 12 can have access to computers when they need them to learn with—something that they do not have now.

I was delighted on 12 June to announce the successful schools in the first round. This is the first step in the digital education revolution. This is the first step in the government’s $1.2 billion program. This is the first step in benefiting secondary schools right around the country. This was a round for schools that had a ratio of computers to students of one to eight or worse. They were the schools that were invited to apply; they were the schools that did apply; they were the schools that benefited from this round. There were 896 of them around the country. In benefiting these schools, we said in this first round we wanted to get these schools to achieve an effective ratio of one to two for computers to students. These schools will be able to apply in forthcoming rounds as well but, for schools that had a ratio of computers to students of one to eight or worse, in this first round we wanted to bring them to a ratio of one to two.

This has occasioned an expenditure of $116 million of government funds, accessing 116,000 computers for these 896 schools around the country. Seventy-two per cent of the funding in round 1 is going to government schools, nine per cent to independent schools and 19 per cent to Catholic schools. The way this has worked is the government has budgeted a $1,000-per-unit cost for the technology. Of course, many schools in bulk purchasing arrangements will access the technology they want for a lesser cost than that, meaning the balance of the $1,000 can be used for deployment costs. In addition, the government has allocated $11.25 million for professional development for teachers, with that money going through states and territories. We have allocated $650,000 direct for professional development, we have allocated $32.6 million for curriculum that will work with the online technology and we have dedicated $10 million to support mechanisms for this rollout of computers in schools.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody in the states and territories and the Catholic and independent school sectors who have worked so hard with the government to achieve this result so quickly. This is something that, of course, we have seen the opposition criticise, whinge, carp and moan about. When they were in government, not only did they not do anything to bring computers to students in schools but they apparently did not know that there was a problem. The then Minister for Education, Science and Training, the present Deputy Leader of the Opposition, on 15 November 2007 said:

Now I visit schools across Australia, I’m yet to see a school that is not well served with computers.

That was the current Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the then education minister.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Any member of parliament who has visited schools in their own electorate. The national audit shows more than 800 schools that had ratios of worse than one to eight. This is a remarkable statement, a breathtaking statement from a former government that was completely out of touch—an opposition that is completely out of touch. The one thing I can say to this opposition is: if you are not even smart enough to realise there was a problem, then there is no way you are ever going to be a contributor to the solution. The government has the answer, working through our National Secondary Schools Computer Fund, and I am delighted that more than 800 schools are beneficiaries in round 1.