News

Today’s announcement of a funding deal between the Albanese Government and the Tasmanian Government will lock in inequality for public schools, students and their families across the next decade.

The extent of inequity in Australia’s school funding has been revealed in new research, showing that almost double the number of private schools in Western Australia now receive more combined government funding (Commonwealth and state) per student than public schools of very similar size, location and with similar student needs.

Contrary to claims by the Cook and Albanese governments, the bilateral agreement signed by the state and Commonwealth governments on Tuesday will still leave public school students in Western Australia underfunded and not fully funded as claimed.

The 2024 NAPLAN results have delivered a damning indictment on the failure of governments to fully fund public schools and show, once again, the urgency of the Albanese Government delivering on their pre-election promise for public schools to be funded at 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard.

The Australian Education Union acknowledges the significant $768 million funding deal struck between the Albanese Government and the Northern Territory.

In this story, I share my personal trajectory as a teacher experiencing public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the Brazil countryside and urge stakeholders to reflect on the problems involving such partnerships to education. In addition, I reflect on how such PPPs are a result of the lack of financing in education and on how important it is for stakeholders to advocate for enlarged budgets in the sector in the context of the Transforming Education Summit.

In a recent radio interview with 4BC, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said students should learn about the atrocities suffered by Indigenous people in Australia. Historical events such as massacres should be part of the Australian history curriculum. Mr Albanese added it was something that should be done without feelings of shame from non-Indigenous teachers.

The state government’s desperate plans to fix the state’s teacher shortage will not address the underlying issues in the public education system, according to the SSTUWA. The union said the government’s plan to send under qualified teachers into short- staffed schools (announced late last year) was a short-sighted move which had the potential to cause more harm than good.

Every child has the right to a high quality education, delivered by qualified and professional teachers in their local neighbourhood. It is Australia’s public education system and its dedicated workforce that upholds this right.

The State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia has welcomed the announcement of a new Education Minister in today’s cabinet reshuffle, with the division into separate ministerial portfolios of early childhood education and training suggesting the state government is giving education a higher priority.

he State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia has rejected the state government’s desperate plans to fix the state’s teacher shortage, saying they will not address the underlying issues in the public education system.

President of the Cambodian hospitality union (LRSU) representing workers at the Naga World Casino Hotel was arrested in Phnom Penh airport and jailed on 26 November while returning from International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) World Congress in Melbourne.

We are at the end of yet another year which brought far more turmoil than we could have ever expected. We thought that we’d seen the worst of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 and that we were pretty well prepared - vaccinations mostly done – for the beginning of the year.