Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Will the minister update the House on the success of the Independent Public Schools program in Western Australia? How is the government targeting the things that work to improve education in our schools?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowan for his question. It is an excellent question about a serious subject, and that is the school education of young Western Australians—in particular, in the electorate of Canning, which is facing a very important by-election on Saturday. Andrew Hastie, our terrific candidate for that seat, when he gets to Canberra—and I hope that he will—will also be a strong supporter of the sound education policies that we have put in place in our Students First plan to turn around student outcomes.

For example, we have had record funding to Australian schools from the Commonwealth and into Western Australia. Funding to government schools in Western Australia is increasing by 72 per cent, and total Commonwealth funding to all schools in WA is increasing by 42 per cent from 2014 to 2019, so we are getting the basics right in terms of funding. We brought Western Australia into the national funding model, which the Labor Party had failed to do, in fact short-changing Western Australia to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. We brought them into the national school-funding plan, and we returned that money to them. You might remember, Mr Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition removed $1.2 billion from school funding. We put it back.

There are 60 schools in Canning that are benefiting from our teacher education reforms. I am very pleased to say that all of the states and territories, including WA, have agreed to reform the way we train our teachers to give them good basic understandings of phonics, and specialists in primary school teaching in science, mathematics and languages.

In terms of the Independent Public Schools model, which the member asked me about, I had the pleasure of visiting the Ocean Road Primary School and the Neerigen Brook Primary School with the late member for Canning, Don Randall. Both of these schools are independent public schools. Western Australia were the first state to embrace independent public schooling. They have done it in the most comprehensive way of any state or territory across Australia, and they are seeing the benefits. Western Australia are at the top of the ladder in terms of NAPLAN results for their students. In fact, Peter Collier, who is the Minister for Education, said:

The Independent Public Schools initiative … has transformed public schooling in Western Australia …

…   …   …

… With the school and community working together, the most appropriate decisions for students can be made because they know what is needed and what works.

So at Ocean Road Primary School and at Neerigen Brook Primary School, where I have been, we are seeing independent public schooling in practice working for the people of Canning. There are 25,000 students in Canning. They are benefiting from our new app, the Learning Potential app, which is one of the top three education apps on the App Store and the Google Play store. So, on Saturday, we hope that the people of Canning will see the wisdom of supporting Andrew Hastie.