2024-03-17
Tabatha Badger | Lead Candidate for Lyons
Tasmania’s public schools are drastically underfunded to the tune of $118 million a year, $52 million of which is supposed to come from the Tasmanian Government.
Instead of tackling this issue head-on, the Liberals last year signed a public funding agreement with the Commonwealth that failed to meet School Resourcing Standards (SRS) and allowed Tasmania to count questionable expenses towards its school funding shortfall.
The Greens call on whoever is in government after the election to stump up Tasmania’s fair share of the funding shortfall, regardless of loopholes in the Commonwealth agreement, and demand the Commonwealth pay an additional 5% of SRS funding they are responsible for.
“In a deepening cost of living crisis, too many families are being hit hard by out-of-pocket school expenses.
“Every Tasmanian family should have access to quality, genuinely free, local public school, but persistent underfunding of the public school system is penalising teachers, parents and carers, and degrading the futures of thousands of students.
“To make our education system fairer it’s essential there is fairer funding.
“Our public schools aren't getting the resources they need, and it's because of the way State and Federal government are approaching funding. Their approach guarantees that thousands of Tasmanian students are being left without the support they need.
“It’s shameful that our governments underfund government schools, while overfunding non-government schools. No public school in Tasmania is funded to the School Resourcing Standard, when by contrast every private school in Tasmania receives 100% or more of its SRS entitlement.
“No more dodgy accounting tricks, it’s time to fix this mess for Tasmania’s future. Whoever is in government after the election needs to stump up Tasmania’s fair share of the public school funding shortfall and demand the Commonwealth pay the funding they are responsible for too.”