SSTUWA - State School Teachers' Union of Western Australia

Federal Funding Campaign In The West

Ten billion dollars a year! A colossal amount of capital but this is how much the Australian Government is shy when it comes to funding education in comparison to other OECD countries.

As part of a national campaign to enhance public school funding, AEU President Angelo Gavrielatos travelled around Australia to garner support for this once in a generation campaign to endorse the Gonski Review.

No child will be left behind, claims the Gonski Review.

This sounds good in reason, but what Gonski has failed to address, is the private education system will continue to be grossly overfunded yet again.

The report did however recognise that the current Federal Government funding arrangements have flaws and are indeed fuelling a resource gap between private and government schools.

Along side Angelo, SSTUWA President Anne Gisborne, rallied for the Gillard Government to embrace the findings, which would see a $5 billion dollar increase in the funding of Australian schools. According to Gonski, 3.8 billion dollars of funding per annum will go to government schools.

A significant injection of money and something state schools are long overdue for, said Angelo.

Anne joined Angelo in visiting schools in a day of campaigning.

They met with Rockingham MP Gary Grey to determine what local government can do on behalf of their constituents.

It was 18 months ago Julia Gillard commissioned a review into the funding of Australian schools. There were 7200 submissions, 6000 of which were direct results of the unions collective campaigning.

The current funding model, at a state level lacks transparency and needs change.

“The Gillard Government needs to respond to the Gonski report and move to implement legislation before we find ourselves in an election with no change,” said Anne.

“Gonski is recommending only half of what we would need to get to the average level of expenditure. It’s only a small amount, its only half per cent of GDP, it’s only a 15% increase on the current expenditure on education. What we know is unless we invest it we won’t be able to meet the needs of our kids in the way we believe we should, added Angelo.”

With the government commissioning a review, yet failing to embrace it, we need to act collectively to ensure its implementation.

“Its time that the governments invest in our public schools to ensure there is a public school of the highest quality in every community.”

“Never before have we had a government report so clear in its demands on government in order to invest in our schools and do the best for our kids. At the end of the day it’s about ensuring that every child has access to a public school in their community.” Angelo said.

With just two clicks of the mouse, you can log on to the, For Our Future website and send a message to Julia Gillard, calling on the government to take action in the interest of our kids.

“You’re doing a great job everyday in our schools right across the country, our members are doing a great job, but we have been doing with too little for too long,” said Angelo.

Pictures from the event