Unions seek billions in public school funding

“Sucking the life out of our profession.’’ As the federal government flags new funding targets to lift student results, teachers are demanding more money and lighter workloads.

The federal government wants new targets to lift literacy standards.

Teacher unions demanded lighter workloads plus $6.5bn a year in extra taxpayer spending on state schools on Friday, as the federal government promised a “better and fairer’’ education system.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said schools must meet “concrete targets” to lift the performance of students struggling with basic literacy and numeracy.

“Education is the most powerful force for good in this country,’’ he said. “We’ve got to make sure that all Australian children get access to it.

“How do we open the door of opportunity wider for all children, in particular kids from poor backgrounds and from the bush and Indigenous kids?’’

Mr Clare was responding to a new Productivity Commission report revealing that almost 90,000 students are failing minimum standards for reading, writing and maths every year.

The report warns that children from poor families, First Nations students, and those living in rural and remote areas are most likely to fall behind and never catch up.

“In any year there are always going to be students who don’t meet those basic literacy and numeracy standards’’ Mr Clare said. “But it’s what you do about it that really matters … how you target money and teachers and support to help them to reach those standards.

“We need to tie the funding to reforms to help those kids.’’

Mr Clare said the Covid-19 pandemic had worsened the wellbeing of children.

“The health and wellbeing of our students (has) been smashed by Covid,’’ he said. “If you’re a parent, you know that.’’

Mr Clare said a Victorian primary school principal had told him that “for the first time ever she’d seen kindergarten kids still turning up in nappies, and linked that back to some of the trauma of the pandemic and lockdowns’’.

“This is serious and real,’’ he said.

The Australian Education Union, representing public school teachers, demanded $6.5bn a year in extra funding for public schools.

It said public schools still were not receiving the full School Resourcing Standard of baseline spending set out in the Gonski review of school funding in 2012.

“Every public school student in Australia is currently missing out on an average of $1800 in funding every year,” AEU president Correna Haythorpe said.

“The sad reality is that successive governments have failed a generation of public school students, denying their schools urgently needed resources for more teachers, support staff and additional learning programs, especially for students with additional needs.’’

Independent Education Union Queensland and NT secretary Terry Burke said: “Paperwork, more red tape and an obsession with data are sucking the life out of our profession.’’

Federal Opposition education spokesman Alan Tudge said: “With six of the eight states and territories led by Labor governments, the Albanese government has no excuse to not be able to implement the Productivity Commission recommendations.”