Education funding is number one priority in state election – experts say
Education policy set to be the point which decides the outcome of the upcoming state election.
With the Victorian state election less than fifty days away, experts are calling on both major parties to make significant reinvestments into secondary education.
Currently only fifty-eight-and-a-half per cent of secondary school students attend government schools, compared to just over seventy percent of primary school students.
President of the Australian Education Union (Victorian branch), Mary Bluett blames this on the fact that there are “simply being more resources put into primary than secondary” education.
She believes that while funding will not necessarily result in an increase in schools’ student population, it would certainly help.
“It’s about meeting the needs of all students in the school,” she said.
Victorian Council of Social Service CEO, Cath Smith told SJB Online that the State government is “spending about the same” amount on education as they were ten years ago, while funding to prisons and the justice system is around three times what it was back then.
Victoria is currently the lowest-funded state when it comes to education.
As a result, funding to schools most in need is significantly smaller than that of other states.
Bluett thinks governments should be funding schools according to their needs “in a bigger way than they are.”
A delapidated building at Brighton Secondary College in Melbourne’s south-east.
Some of the facilities enjoyed by Brighton Primary School students.