President Jarvis Ryan meets with the new NT Education Minister, Selena Uibo
Even with a change of Prime Minister, debates about education funding are still raging.
New PM Scott Morrison installed a new Education Minister, Dan Tehan, and made his first job repairing relations with Catholic schools. The Catholic school lobby was unhappy with the deal they got under last year’s “Gonski 2.0” funding model.
Within days of Tehan’s appointment, news leaked of Catholic schools being allocated an additional $4.4 billion in funding over the next decade. This was prompted by fears among Liberal MPs in marginal seats that alienating the Catholic sector could cost them at the election.
Too bad there doesn’t appear to be similar concern about how the new funding model affects children in the public school sector, which educates more than two thirds of all children in Australia (and 75% of kids in the NT).
AEU NT Branch President, Jarvis Ryan, travelled to Adelaide for this month’s Education Council of Ministers meeting and together with AEU colleagues from around the country, argued for fair funding for our public schools as well as consultation of teachers on the National School Reform Agenda (NERA) that is tied to this funding.
Read Jarvis’ full editorial on this issue from the latest edition of the Territory Educator by clicking the link below.
Further reading
Canberra Farce Continues