Federal 2008 Budget

On Tuesday 13 May 2008, the Australian Government Treasurer, The Hon Wayne Swan MP, delivered the 2008 Federal Budget. In his speech to Parliament, Treasurer Swan stated that ‘tonight we begin to honour the Government’s commitment to an Education Revolution’. In a media release accompanying the Budget, the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, The Hon Julia Gillard MP, emphasised that ‘no Australian student should be disadvantaged when it comes to receiving a quality education’ and that ‘the government will continue to work closely with state, territory and non-government education authorities to deliver world-class facilities for all Australian students’.

With regard to education, the Budget has mainly focused on ensuring that the Australian Government meets its election commitments. The Budget outlined $19.3 billion of investment in education, the centrepiece of which was the establishment of an $11 billion investment fund for tertiary institutions. The Budget provided a real increase in funding for schools of 12.5 per cent in 2008-09. The Australian concluded that the Education Investment Fund represented ‘the major announcement in an education package that includes no other major new initiatives’.

Schools Funding

2009-2012 Quadrennium

While not included directly in the 2008 Budget, Minister Gillard has re-iterated that the Australian Government would honour its commitment to maintain the current SES funding arrangements for non-government schools, and that legislation covering the 2009-2012 funding quadrennium would be introduced into Parliament later in 2008. She stated that a minimum of $42 billion would be allocated to schools’ funding under the 2009-2012 quadrennium. Minister Gillard also indicated that the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) was continuing negotiations to develop National Partnership payments that would support disadvantaged government and non-government schools. She indicated that any funding provided under National Partnership payments would be in addition to the $42 billion that had already been allocated. She also stated that, depending upon the timing of COAG negotiations, details of the National Partnership payments would be included either in the 2009-2012 funding quadrennium legislation or in the 2009 Budget.

Vocational Education and Training (VET)

As detailed in the Australian Government’s election promise, the Budget has allocated $2.5 billion over ten years to establish trade training centres in all Australian secondary schools. Under the Trades in Schools Programme, schools would be eligible to apply for grants of between $500,000 and $1,500,000 to install facilities and equipment that promotes the teaching of VET in years 9, 10, 11 and 12. The Budget also provided $98 million over four years to encourage secondary students undertaking vocational education to participate in on-the-job training. Schools would be able to apply for grants of up to $10,000 to provide these students with training for one day per week for 20 weeks per annum. Schools would be able to use the funding to employ community coordinators or to establish links with local employers. Finally, $6.4 million has been allocated to strengthen partnerships between schools and business and to develop a Job Ready Certificate for students undertaking vocational education.

National Secondary School Computer Fund

The 2008 Budget committed $1.2 billion over five years towards the Australian Government’s National Secondary School Computer Fund election promise, which aimed to ensure that all Australian students in years 9 to 12 had access to a computer at school. The Australian Government had previously announced that it would allocate $1 billion over four years towards the programme. The funding included:

• $100 million over the five years to support the deployment of broadband fibre connections to Australian schools with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second;
• $32.6 million over two years to develop on-line curriculum tools and resources for students and teachers;
• $10 million over three years to provide support mechanisms to assist schools to make the best use of information and communications technology;
• Funding for government and non-government school systems to develop a unified technical framework; and
• Additional funding to meet the administrative costs for authorities that administered the National Computer Fund on behalf of the Australian Government for non-government schools.

Education Tax Refund

In line with its election commitments, the Australian Government announced that it would introduce a tax refund for legitimate education expenses for eligible parents. The tax refund would be available to recipients of the Family Tax Benefit (Part A) who had children in primary or secondary school. This would include parents who home-schooled their children. Eligible parents would be able to claim a 50 per cent refundable tax offset every year for ‘key education expenses’ up to $750 for primary and $1,500 for secondary students. Legitimate education expenses would include laptops, home computers and associated costs, home internet connections, printers, educational software, prescribed trade tools for use at school, school text books and stationery. School fee expenses can not be claimed. The Budget papers estimated that the rebate would cost $1 billion per annum.

National Action Plan on Literacy and Numeracy

The Australian Government has allocated $577.4 million over four years to create a National Action Plan on Literacy and Numeracy, designed to improve literacy and numeracy standards in schools. In conjunction with state and territory governments, schools and non-government school systems, the Australian Government would develop the plan that would, in the first instance, target those schools most in need of support. Minister Gillard announced that the results of the 2008 national literacy and numeracy benchmark tests would be used as a starting point to identify the neediest schools. Minister Gillard announced that the Australian Government would retain and evaluate all existing literacy and numeracy initiatives for 2008, but that all funding would be re-directed towards the national Action Plan in 2009. She also announced that further details about the Plan would be released later in 2008, following consultation with the appropriate agencies. The Action Plan also allocated $10 million to undertake research and collect data that would inform an evidence-based approach to literacy and numeracy programmes and to teacher professional development. According to the Budget Papers, the Plan represented ‘a first critical step in ensuring that children have mastered the fundamental learning tools, without which they will be impoverished learners and unable to contribute fully to society’.

The Australian Government obtained the funding for the National Action Plan by scrapping several programmes that had been introduced by the Howard Government. These included the Summer School for Teachers Programme, which will be scrapped immediately, the Even Start – National Tuition Programm, which provided tuition vouchers for children who failed to meet literacy and numeracy benchmarks and which will be scrapped from 2009, and a scheme to reward schools that were able to improve their students’ literacy and numeracy results, that was due to commence in 2008. The Budget also indicated that the Australian Government would reduce funding for Teaching Australia by 40 per cent in 2008-09, and that funding would be further reduced in future years. Minister Gillard claimed that the Howard Government had used literacy and numeracy as ‘ideological weapons’ to bypass state governments. She claimed that ‘previous programmes…were fragmented and ineffective, and lacked rigorous evidence and evaluation. They failed to provide additional resources to help struggling students improve their literacy and numeracy skills.’

Capital Funding

As part of a plan ‘to rebuild Australian schools for the future’, the Budget provided $1.7 billion over four years for capital maintenance and infrastructure in schools. The funding included $457 for schools capital works in 2008-09. Minister Gillard indicated that the funding would be distributed ‘in a fair and equitable fashion’, with additional assistance being provided for schools in remote areas and low socioeconomic communities. The Australian Government also allocated $481 million over four years to implement its Solar Schools Programme. Under the plan, which aimed to ensure that all Australian schools would be ‘solar schools’ by 2015, schools would be able to apply for grants of up to $20,000 to install solar panels. Finally, $62.5 million was provided over 4 years for a Local Schools Working Together pilot programme. Under the programme, government and non-government schools would be encouraged to construct and share facilities for the benefit of their local community.

National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Programme

Following Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s commitment to encourage the study of Asian languages in Australian schools, the Budget has committed $62.4 million over three years to re-instate the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Programme. The Programme had been cancelled by the Howard Government in 2002. Under the new programme, funding would be used to support additional Asian language classes in secondary schools, teacher training and support in Asian languages and the development of specialist curricula for students with advanced abilities in Asian languages and studies.

Indigenous Education

The Budget outlined several initiatives to improve the education outcomes of indigenous students:

• The Closing the Gap Programme received $718.7 million over four years to try to reduce the performance gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students. Included in the funding was $56.4 million over four years to implement the Building Strong Foundations Programme. This programme aims to deliver intensive literacy and numeracy programmes for under-achieving indigenous students and to implement individual learning plans for indigenous students. The funding also included $28.9 million over four years to construct three new boarding facilities in the Northern Territory.
• The Budget allocated $98.8 million over five years to increase the number of teachers of indigenous students in the Northern Territory by 200 between 2007-08 and 2011-12.
• $19.1 million was provided in 2008-09 to provide professional development for teacher of indigenous students.
• $7.4 million was allocated in 2008-09 under the School Nutrition Programme to provide breakfast and lunch for indigenous students in the Northern Territory.

National Curriculum and Assessment

The Australian Government allocated $5 million in 2008-09 to the National Curriculum Board to begin to develop a national curriculum. The Budget also allowed $17.2 million over four years for the establishment of a National Schools Assessment and Data Centre, whose goal would be to improve the collection, reporting and analysis of data relating to school performance and student achievement of educational goals. Contrary to recent media reports that have claimed that the Australian Government is moving away from the publication of school performance data, the Budget Papers explicitly claimed that the public reporting of school and student results would improve school and student performance.

School security

In line with the Australian Government’s election commitments, the Budget provided $25 million over five years to increase security in schools. The funding would be available to schools with particular security needs or threat assessments to meet the costs of additional security ‘where questions of religious affiliation, questions of racial hatred are involved’. The Australian Government indicated that it would use police and security organisation assessments to identify schools in need of assistance.

Welfare Payments and School Attendance

The Budget has allocated $17.6 million for a pilot programme designed to improve school attendance. Under the programme, welfare payments would be suspended for parents who failed to enrol their children or send them to school. The programme will be trialled in 8 communities and the Australian Government will work in conjunction with the state, non-government school authorities and parents to implement the programme. The Australian Government also intended to introduce a welfare card that would allow them to control welfare payments to negligent parents.

SES Funding for Jewish schools

As promised in the lead up to the Federal Election in 2007, the Budget allocated $16 million over four years to address funding anomalies in the SES funding model. The Australian Government had previously indicated that it believed that the SES funding model failed to accurately measure the needs of orthodox Jewish schools.

Primary Vegetable Gardens

Following the success of a programme in Victorian government schools, the Australian Government allocated $12.8 million over four years for primary schools to establish kitchen and vegetable gardens. Under the programme, 190 primary schools will receive funding to establish gardens targeted towards students in years 3 to 6. 

Student Mentors

The Budget allocated $5 million over four years to establish a pilot student mentoring programme, under which recently-retired professionals and trades people would be invited to volunteer to pass on their skills and knowledge to secondary students. 25 grants of up to $50,000 would be made available each year to communities.

Clever Networks Funding

The Budget Papers confirmed that the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) would continue to provide funding in 2008-09 for the Victorian Independent Communication Technologies and Online Resources Project (VICTOR). After providing $1.7 million in 2007-08, DBCDE will provide $3.5 million in 2008-09 towards VICTOR. The project establishes a managed virtual private network for independent schools in rural and regional Victoria, and will help to improve learning opportunities and outcomes for students and to support the professional development of teachers.

Early Childhood Funding

The Budget also outlined expenditure of $2.4 billion over five years to introduce ‘integrated early childhood initiatives’ after the Budget papers indicated that Australia possessed ‘a fragmented early childhood sector, with a patchwork of services, funding and regulations’. The funding included:

• $533.5 million over five years to provide all Australian children with access to affordable early learning programmes delivered by a university-qualified teacher. Under the Australian Government’s place, by 2013 all Australian children would have access to 15 hours per week for 40 weeks per year in the year before they commence formal schooling.
• $126.6 million over four years to provide university training and re-training for early childhood teachers;
• $114.5 million over the next four years to establish 38 childcare centres across Australia, including six that would provide places for children with autism spectrum disorders. The Australian Government indicated that it intended eventually to establish a total of 260 childcare centres on school sites and community land.
• $32.5 million over five years to implement a programme that would help disadvantaged children aged 3-5 to prepare for school.
• $22.2 million over 4 years to develop national quality standards for child care and preschool. This would include the implementation of a five star quality rating system that would provide parents with information about all Australian pre-school and childcare centres.
• $20.2 million over 5 years to implement the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI). The AEDI uses a checklist of 100 developmental factors to assess children’s physical health and wellbeing, language and learning skills, social skills, emotional maturity, communication skills and general knowledge as they start school.
• $2.5 million for the development of an Early Years Learning Framework. The framework would outline a national curriculum for pre-school education.
• The establishment of a Home Interaction Programme in partnership with the Brotherhood of St Lawrence. Under the programme, the Brotherhood would provide support to 50 disadvantaged communities by providing home tutors, books and educational resources to help parents prepare their children for school.

Tertiary Funding

The central element of the 2008 Budget was the establishment of the Australian Government’s $11 billion Education Investment Fund (EIF). The fund replaces the $6 billion Education Endowment Fund (EEF) which was established by the Howard Government in the 2007 Budget. In addition to the $6 billion invested by the Howard Government, the Australian Government has allocated $5 billion from the 2007 and 2008 Budgets to the EIF. Unlike the Howard Government, which only allocated the interest on the EEF to be used, both the capital and interest components of the EIF would be used to fund capital works and upgrades in universities and TAFE institutions. The Australian Government Minister for Education would retain discretion as to the use of EIF funding. According to The Australian newspaper, in the long-term schools might be permitted to access funding through the EIF ‘if the funds are available’. In addition, the Budget provided:

• $500 million by mid-2008 for universities to maintain and upgrade capital teaching, research and student facilities;
• $626 million over 4 years to reduce the HECS rates for mathematics and science students who undertook employment in their field of study;
• $249 million to provide for 11,000 additional HECS-subsidised places in university courses. This funding was provided to compensate universities for the fact that, from 2009, they will no longer be permitted to offer full-fee undergraduate degrees to local students; and
• $239 million over four years to increase access to tertiary study. The funding would provide for 29,000 additional ‘national priority scholarships’ for students to undertake studies in areas experiencing skills shortages and 15,000 ‘national accommodation scholarships’ for students who had to move interstate to study.

Go to www.aph.gov.au/budget/ to access a copy of the 2008 Budget Papers.

 

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