PRIME Minister Julia Gillard repeated her pledge to boost funding for every student in Australia during a visit to Braybrook College.
Ms Gillard toured the school with federal Schools Minister Peter Garrett on Friday before fielding questions from local educators and students at the school.
She said more needed to be done for young people with more disadvantaged backgrounds.
“We’ve got a big gap in the education that kids from the most wealthy places get compared with kids who’ve got the most difficult start in life.
“That’s true here in the western suburbs of Melbourne and we do want to change that.”
Student Ryan Higginson tested the Prime Minister with a question about spending on private schools at the expense of underfunded public schools.
Ms Gillard said she stood by a commitment to increase funding for all schools, whether public or private.
“I certainly do see inequality in our education system. It’s true in Australia today that you are less likely to emerge from school with a great education if you come from a poorer background. When it comes to resourcing schools and improving schools, that is at the forefront of our minds.”
She added that every child’s education should receive government support.
“We shouldn’t be setting school against school and having one of those arguments.
“I think we can have a national debate that drives us to combat disadvantage.”
The Prime Minister slammed the $300million cuts to TAFE funding by the Victorian government, claiming the state was ripping out funding at a time the federal government had boosted its own spending.
“$300million of cutbacks here is really going to hurt. There are many institutions, including Victoria University in our own Melbourne’s west, that are seeing a substantial reduction in their budget because of these TAFE cutbacks.
I think this is crazy.”
The Gonski report on school funding found $6billion a year would need to be spent to support disadvantaged students in Australia – 80per cent of whom attend government schools.
Mr Garrett said the government was working to finalise its response to the report before announcing exactly how new funding arrangements would work.
“Since we released the Gonski review there has been an enormous amount of work undertaken. One of the things we saw as a really important insight was the identification that if we’re serious about education in the future we need to look at a consistent funding model that focuses on student need.”
