New Education Minister Jason Clare vows to ensure Western Sydney students get equal opportunities

New Education Minister Jason Clare has vowed postcodes should not determine school and university opportunities in a major show of support for Western Sydney families.

Western Sydney students must have the same access to university and skills training as their inner city peers says Australia’s new education minister in a pledge to ensure “postcode doesn’t determine opportunity”.

In a major show of support for the fast growing region, Jason Clare, whose own electorate of Blaxland takes in Bankstown, parts of Auburn, South Granville, Chester Hill and Milperra, said he wants to make sure “all kids” in Western Sydney can “make the big jump” from high school to university if they want.

“The data … shows that the further you live away from a capital city, the more you see a drop in the number of people that go on to higher education, or even complete high school,” Mr Clare said.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare visited his old primary school, Cabramatta Public School, after being sworn into the role. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Clare said he welcomed a new University of Western Sydney campus being built in Bankstown and supported ensuring there were enough local study places to keep up with demand.

“The fact is that opportunity still depends a lot on where you live, on how much your parents earn, whether you’re Indigenous or non-Indigenous, and what I want to do in this job is make a meaningful difference,” he said.

“I want to take us one step close to the day when we can truly say that postcode doesn’t determine opportunity in Australia.”

Mr Clare also ruled out changes to the new national curriculum, which was finally signed off by all states and territories in April, and said he focused on helping teachers and schools “get on with implementing it”.

“I’m not interested in having a fight about this,” he said.

“I’m interested in making sure that our kids get the best education possible.”

Year 6 students Mia Nguyen, Makayla Pham, Education Minister Jason Clare, Matthew Huor and Vinh Nguyen. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

Two days after being sworn in as Education Minister, Mr Clare visited Cabramatta Public School, which he attended as a child, to reflect on his own schooling journey.

“It seemed like the perfect place to start,” he said.

“I’m the first person in my family to go to uni, I’m the first person in my family to finish high school,” he said.

“For my mum and dad – working class kids growing up in Western Sydney in the 1960s – they didn’t even dream that they could go to university.”

Mr Clare said he was also eager to work with his state and territory counterparts to ensure the generation of schoolchildren who had their education disrupted by the pandemic were not disadvantaged long term.

“Covid has had a massive impact on Australian kids,” he said.

Mr Clare said the mental health impact of the lockdowns, particularly on teenagers, “can’t be underestimated”.

“That’s why we made a commitment during the election campaign to invest in more counsellors, psychologists and investing in things like school camps to help to tackle some of those issues.”