Thank you for your email about the Review of Funding for Schooling (the Gonski review). I wholeheartedly agree with you about the importance of education and I can assure you that the Queensland Government is committed to providing the best possible education for our children. To this end, the Queensland Government will not be bullied into signing up to reforms that are not affordable, are not linked directly to improving student outcomes and do not provide the Government flexibility to educate children in such a large, diverse state. It is critical that Queensland students are not worse off, and that the administrative cost on our schools is not increased. Currently the Federal Government spends $158 million employing around 850 bureaucrats in Canberra on schooling, but does not run a single school, nor employ one teacher. And these costs will only climb in the 2013–14 Federal Budget — an additional $80 million will be spent on administering red tape imposed by the Federal Government. Of course the burden of this red tape will also be felt in our schools. The Federal Government is claiming that the offer is ‘two-for-one’ and only requires Queensland to provide an additional $1.3 billion to their $3.8 billion over six years. However, the total additional funding required from Queensland is more than three times this amount — hardly a ‘two for one’ offer. To raise funds of this magnitude, tough budget decisions would have to be made including cutting funding to other areas. In fact, alarmingly, the Federal Government proposes to pay for these so-called education reforms in four ways: • by cutting funding for students in almost 300 Queensland schools (many state schools) • rebranding money already available to our schools as Gonski review funding (70 per cent of Federal Government funding is drawn from existing initiatives) • greatly reducing money available for Queensland children to attend kindergarten (a total of $1.15 billion has been stripped from kindergartens throughout Australia) • slashing funding for university students right across Queensland ($2.3 billion has been cut from Australian universities). Sadly, when all is said and done, Gonski amounts to little more than a brand that cuts one area of education at the cost of another. Queensland students deserve better than political slogans. That is why the Queensland Government has consistently called for a real debate about improving student outcomes, a debate focused on ensuring the quality of our teachers and boosting school autonomy. In contrast, the Queensland Government knows that real differences to our education system are made in the classroom, not the bureaucracy. Our approach is to provide financially responsible, timely and targeted investment in practical measures to improve education through committing $835 million over five years in additional funding. This includes an investment of $535 million in Great Teachers = Great Results: A direct action plan for Queensland schools and $300 million towards clearing the maintenance backlog in Queensland state schools. Research is clear that higher funding in itself does not guarantee student success. That’s why Great Teachers = Great Results focuses on two critical areas for action: professional excellence in teaching and boosting school autonomy. It will pair new teachers with experienced mentors; recognise high performing teachers and school leaders; boost the qualifications of teachers, principals and deputy principals; and deploy high performing teachers to where they are most needed. In addition to Great Teachers = Great Results and the almost $6 billion a year already invested in education, the recent Queensland Budget also provides for an increase in education expenditure of 6.6 per cent including: • investing $4.9 million for 60 state schools to become Independent Public Schools as part of a $21 million funding commitment over four years • allocating 724 additional teachers and teacher aides • providing up to $6 million to boost prep teacher aide hours in schools with greatest need • continuing to spend $6.5 million on literacy and numeracy grants • expending $3.2 million on extra support to students with a disability for speech pathology services in Queensland schools. This is real funding, developed by Queenslanders for Queenslanders, which will be spent right now in Queensland schools, not years into the forward estimates. I have written to the Prime Minister outlining Queensland’s concerns, however, the Federal Government’s arbitrary agreement deadline of 30 June 2013 will be extremely difficult to meet. I want to assure you that my Government will continue to seek the right outcome for Queensland leading up to this date. Again, thank you for writing to me and I hope this information is of assistance to you. Yours sincerely CAMPBELL NEWMAN
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 07:22:44 +0000
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