$5 million won for AEU members
Working with Adviceline, the AEU has won $5 million for its members in a series of court cases this year. These wins include $269,453 across eight impairment benefit claims, $4,046,800 across 18 common law claims and $335,837 across seven cases in the Magistrates Court. These impressive wins came at a cost of less than $650,000 to the union. The AEU does not recover costs froms members. All wins go directly to AEU members.
Investing in high-ability students
Minister for Education James Merlino announced a further $60.2 million investment in schools, this time for programs and professional development to support high-ability students. This will include a program for up to 48,000 students across Years 5–8, and $40.4m in resources for schools, including access to a high-ability practice leader for every state school – a role for existing teachers.
New workforce incentives for hard-to-staff schools
The Andrews government has announced additional funding for public schools across Victoria. This $244.6m investment includes cash incentives to attract teachers into hard-to-staff roles, additional support for learning specialists and additional principals and teachers to support schools to improve teaching and learning. The AEU welcomed this investment but warned it must be followed up with additional funding to address staff workload.
Morrison government pockets $1 billion from TAFE
The Morrison government has failed to spend $1 billion budgeted for the TAFE sector over five years. A federal Department of Education report revealed $5.27b was budgeted for a series of apprenticeship, skills and training initiatives between 2014–15 and 2018–19, but only $4.35b was spent over this period.
Catholic school funding booms as enrolments fall
AEU analysis reveals that combined government recurrent Commonwealth and state/territory funding increases to Catholic schools has grown 80% faster than it has for public schools over the past ten years. This is despite a shift in enrolment growth away from the Catholic sector towards public schools.
OECD report shows impact of Morrison funding cuts
The dire effect of the Morrison government’s cuts to public school funding has again been highlighted, with an international report revealing that total expenditure on schools and non-tertiary post-secondary education in Australia has fallen from 10.4% of total government expenditure in 2010, to 8.9% in 2016.
