Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am particularly concerned to draw to the attention of the House today the impact of the $30 billion in cuts over 10 years that this government has made to school education funding, including not continuing with years 5 and 6 of the Gonski funding, despite making the promise to people before the election that if they voted for the then opposition—who are now the government—there would be absolutely no difference to the funding commitments that Labor had made.

What does that mean locally? Locally, it means over $198 million over ten years has been cut from my local schools. I am meeting with the schools next week and the New South Wales Teachers Federation in my local area to talk about what schools have been doing with this money, and what they stand to lose. At Kiera High School, every Aboriginal student has a teacher mentor and access to the AIME program, and they have been delivering Aboriginal studies to every year 7 student. They also have an increasing number of students with English language or dialect challenges, and they have been providing additional assistance to them. The school has purchased three 3-D printers to allow exposure to new technologies. At Woonona High School they have reduced class sizes and increased curriculum choices, which has meant that 48 per cent of year 12 students last year went on to university and 39 per cent to TAFE. The total figure of 87 per cent was up from 57 per cent in 2012. Restore funding— (Time expired)