VCOSS welcomes the continued commitment of the 2009-10 State Budget to investing in education and early childhood development. Considerable funding has been allocated to the Victorian Schools Plan for school construction, rebuilding and modernisation, while some new dollars have also been directed into teaching and learning, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and early childhood services.
Overall, $1.706 billion has been directed into education and early childhood development, however $1.17 billion of this will be directed to the implementation of teacher pay increases and other industrial changes, and the remainder directed to new initiatives. This investment was also accompanied by a range of national partnership agreements with the Federal Government.
VCOSS would like to see future State Budget’s continue to invest in integrated service delivery, particularly in governance, capacity building and partnership resources and supports, as government and the community sector continue to work towards the development of an integrated system that works across the continuum of education and care that supports children and young people to achieve their full potential in the communities that they live.
Investment in early childhood services had a real effective spending increase of 10.06% in the 2009-10 State Budget, sustaining the Victorian Government’s commitment to early childhood development.
The roll-out of early childhood initiatives announced in previous State Budget’s such as the Children’s Centres capital program, National Early Years Learning Framework and Early Childhood Intervention Services (ECIS) places continue. Investment will be required in these initiatives in future budgets to ensure that all Victorian children and families can have access to innovative and high quality early childhood services once this current funding is exhausted.
$13.6 million was allocated in the 2009-10 State Budget to fund an additional 4,000 kindergarten places. These places will keep up with the increased demand for kindergarten places due to population growth while maintaining the existing kindergarten participation rate target of 92%. In the context of recent amendments to the Child Wellbeing & Safety Act 2005 that state that all children should be able to enrol in kindergarten as well as the $210.6 million over five years allocated to the Victorian Government through the National Partnership on Early Childhood Education to support the universal delivery of 15 hours of early childhood education, VCOSS would like to see a more ambitious participation target moving forward.
Continued investment in student support services and health services in schools saw respectively a 5.7% and a 1.52% real increase in spending. While there was a significant investment in student support services and the Blueprint in the 2008-09 State Budget, VCOSS would have also liked to have seen a further investment in the Blueprint for Education and Early Childhood Development. The funding allocated to the Blueprint in the 2008-09 Budget was determined prior to the finalisation of the Blueprint and was for allocated for strategy development, but seemingly not for strategy implementation. If the Blueprint is to fulfil its commitment to building one of the ‘world’s finest school systems, integrated with the best performing early childhood systems’, then further investment is required.
While the following were announced outside of the 2009-10 State Budget, VCOSS called for and welcomes the indexation of the conveyance allowance, the current review of alternative education and the development of the Education for Global and Multicultural Citizenship strategy. These initiatives will further support children and young people to achieve their potential.
$5 million over four years was announced to strengthen the quality of Early Childhood Intervention Services (ECIS) across Victoria. This is a positive first step, however additional resources for further ECIS reform will need to be allocated in the future if overall system improvement and reform is to be achieved.
$4 million over four years was allocated to support children and young people with a disability or developmental delay. This includes regional planning, data collection and improved service coordination. VCOSS called for a more streamlined approach to assessment to reduce families having to repeat their often harrowing and traumatic stories and therefore welcomes the common approach to assessment is being developed as part of this announcement.
The 2009-10 State Budget also provided an addition $4.1 million over four years for autism support and programs within education and early childhood services, as part of an $8.27 million over four years investment in the state-wide autism plan.
$15.2 million has been allocated to the VET in Schools program to meet increased demand. VCOSS also welcomes the strong investment by the Victorian Government in Skills and Workforce Participation in the 2009-10 Budget (see VCOSS Skills and Workforce Participation Analysis) and anticipates that this investment will enable more young people to remain engaged in education.
However more resources are needed to enable the provision of more flexible learning environments in the middle and later years of education, particularly for the 10-20 per cent of Victorian young people who are disengaged or at-risk of disengaging from education. VCOSS will be campaigning for resource commitments in the 2010-11 State Budget to following the review of alternative education that is currently being undertaken.
Investment in a range of other supports for government schools and broader education reform was also announced. The 2009-10 State Budget announced 200 additional maths and science teaching and learning coaches that will be funded through a $57.7 million program to support improving literacy, numeracy and information technology teaching. While VCOSS supports the need to improve literacy and numeracy supports for students, the 50 Ultranet coaches to ready schools for the implementation of the Ultranet will rely on the Ultranet being ready for release in Term 3, 2010. This is not certain, given previous difficulties with the development of the Ultranet.
VCOSS believes that the Government’s Wannik strategy has the capacity to improve outcomes for Indigenous students, however clearer reporting around Wannik will be required if we are to track success. In addition the $38 million allocated in the 2009-10 Budget for a range of Council of Australian Government (COAG) targets may also go some of the way in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
VCOSS continues to be disappointed at the lack of investment in addressing the cost barriers faced by many families in supporting their children to participate in compulsory education. VCOSS remains concerned at the impact that fees and charges have on education participation, however VCOSS is confident that reform and change is slowly occurring and we welcome the refined Parent Payment Policy and the current audit of schools around fees, charges and finances. We also welcome the opportunity to continue to work with the Victorian Government on issues around the affordability or education.
$402 million for the third instalment of the Victorian Schools Plan was announced to rebuild, renovate or extend 500 government schools.
Specific 2009-10 State Budget initiatives included:
A range of Federal Government funding through national partnership agreements was also announced, highlighting that while a number of areas were not funded at a solely Victorian level, there is collaborative work and investment being undertaken.
Of the National Partnerships that have been announced, VCOSS particularly welcomes:
VCOSS hopes that despite this significant Commonwealth investment that the Victorian Government continues to build on its own investment in Indigenous children and young people and also children and young people who are experiencing disadvantage.