Rural kids claim a slice of the Gonski pie

Posted August 21, 2013 15:34:58

Audio: Education Minister says rural kids to benefit from Gonski (ABC Rural)

The higher cost of educating rural and regional school students is properly recognised under the government's Better Schools reform, Labor's Education Minister says.

Labor has been keen to talk up its schools policy, formerly known as the Gonski reforms, in this election campaign. The Federal Coalition changed tack earlier this month, saying it's now on a "unity ticket" with Labor on the reforms, and will follow through with the plan over the next four years.

New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, as well as the Catholic education system, have all signed up.

Education Minister Bill Shorten says it's not only city kids who'll benefit from the changes.

"We've got a specific loading that recognises the additional costs of educating a child in the bush, and what that means is that we'll provide extra Commonwealth taxpayer resources to make sure that children get the same deal no matter what their postcode, " he said.

"We're giving greater authority to local school communities to allocate their resources, so a school could decide that, if it's got some children who are behind in terms of where their average peers would be in literacy and numeracy, they can use skills coaches, mathematics coaches.

"At the other end [of the spectrum], you've got kids who are very bright and deserve more choices and more options, so there can be greater elective subjects offered in schools.

"For kids with a disability and their parents, we can provide extra resources [including] teachers' aides. Also, we're making it possible for children with disabilities to attend non-government schools and the money goes with the child to the non-government school."

Mr Shorten says these extra resources would be delivered both in person, by teachers on the ground, as well as remotely.

"With the NBN [National Broadband Network], we are breaking the back of the tyranny of distance, but it's also about extra teachers," he said.

"Let's take, for instance, children in various provincial cities and even smaller towns, who might want to study music, who might want to learn a language other than English; these resources mean that schools can make decisions about extra teachers, extra subjects."

Money provided to schools through the Better Schools reforms will help teachers keep up to date with professional development and training, Mr Shorten says.

"Also what we're doing, is that we're encouraging some of the brightest teacher graduates to go, [through the Teach for Australia initiative] and teach in remote parts of Australia .

"We try and attract the best and brightest teacher graduates, and give them support to go and teach in the country, we're also trying to encourage people who are perhaps in another career but have always thought about teaching, to try their hand at teaching. So for people who've been out in the world and who want to come and teach, we're speeding up the time it takes for them to get their qualification."

Topics: access-to-education, distance-education, alp, rural, community-development, rural-youth, parliament-house-2600