Leaders must act on Gonski review at COAG

Tomorrow’s COAG meeting in Canberra is an important test of the commitment of the
nation’s leaders to improving the education of children, the Australian Education Union said
today.

AEU Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos said there needed to be a clear timetable for
legislative action on the Gonski Review which warns of the urgent need for an injection of
$5 billion extra a year into schools.

“State and territory leaders and the Federal Government have a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to reform the way schools are resourced and improve the quality of education
delivered across the country,” Mr Gavrielatos said.

“This cannot be another talkfest with no timetable for action. Crying poor is also
unacceptable. What is more important than the education of our children?"

“There needs to be a commitment to the introduction of legislation this year and to
appropriately funding the new system."

“The message from the Gonski Review could not be clearer: the current funding system is
broken and it is failing too many of our students."

“A lack of properly targeted resources is jeopardising the future opportunities for our children
and the prosperity of the nation.”

“We are holding our children back by under-investing in education.”

“The greatest need is in public schools where the required investment is around $3.8 billion
a year (in 2009 dollars). As the Gonski Review stated the ‘need for additional expenditure
and the application of what those funds can do is urgent’."

"We want to see long term reform in the way public schools are funded so they do not have
to rely on add-on funding such as the National Partnerships.”