Every child in every school

As Branch President Lara Golding notes, proper funding for public education is at the core of issues impacting on support for students and our campaign calls on state and federal Governments to take action.

Every child in every school and preschool deserves to receive the support they need to be successful. Funding is at the heart of support in our school system. With proper funding our classrooms are not overcrowded, complex needs are supported, and our students can thrive.

But right now too many children and young people are missing out on this support. Not only is this unfair on them, it also leads to excessive workloads for teachers, leaders and support staff in schools and preschools.

Tragically this is not an accident or somehow due to circumstance. Under current agreements between state and federal governments, South Australian public schools are only funded at 93% of the independently determined benchmark Schooling Resource Standard. The SRS is recognised as the minimum funding requirement to give every child, regardless of their background, the greatest opportunity to achieve their full potential.

This means public schools in South Australia are – by design – currently underfunded by 7%.

Teachers, leaders and support staff are doing their best to make up the multi-million-dollar shortfall, trying desperately to give students and children the support they need. But without funding, students and children are missing out.

This year we will campaign for all schools and preschools to be properly and fairly funded by state and federal governments. It is far beyond time to address the inadequacies with support funding and we need more teachers, more support staff and smaller classes that take into account complexity.

Twin elections due over the next 12 months give us an opportunity to achieve positive change but it won’t be easy. Our task now is to show political leaders that educators and communities care about quality public education and that it is an election-defining issue.

We will be calling on all Federal politicians to commit to:

• funding public schools to a minimum of 100% of the SRS including fully funded loadings for students with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, rural and remote students, and students requiring English language support;
• removing the legislated 20% cap on the Commonwealth share of the SRS for public schools;
• removing the 4% capital depreciation tax in school funding bilateral agreements; and
• establishing a capital fund for public schools to help meet rising enrolment growth and infrastructure needs.

Leading economist Adam Rorris has calculated the national funding shortfall for public schools at $27 billion over the next 4 years. His report has also shown that the cumulative capital investment gap between public and private schools was $21.5 billion from 2013 to 2018, and that the 4% depreciation tax applied to public education will cost public schools $8 billion nationally over the next 4 years.

Meanwhile, public preschools continue to be subjected to funding uncertainty. To fight for fair funding of preschools, the AEU is supporting the Thrive By Five campaign and calling for ongoing Universal Access funding.

The funding for public schools and preschools has a huge impact on the support funding available to students and workloads of teachers, leaders and support staff. We need to be loud, proud, and public to pressure Federal and State politicians to fix the chronic underfunding issues.

At the same time, we are working with community groups and other associations to mount a community campaign aimed at state politicians and decision-makers to fix the Inclusive Education Support Program (IESP) process, increase the base allocation to schools and preschools and provide more specialist support staff to schools including behaviour coaches and psychologists.

We will be campaigning to:

• Increase government spending to ensure that learning, behaviour and wellbeing support for children/students is timely, responsive and sustained;
• Reduce class sizes in a way that takes into account class complexity;
• Reduce workloads that impact upon wellbeing and personal time;
• Increase permanent employment across all classifications and sectors; and
• Stop TAFE course cuts and increase funding for TAFE. 

In unity
Lara

I welcome your feedback on our campaigning – email me at: [email protected]