Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education

The Coalition Government has released an extensive report to guide efforts to overcome the educational divide between capital cities and regional and rural areas.  

The final report of the Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education, led by Emeritus Professor Dr John Halsey will help ensure regional and rural students, including those in the Electorate of Parkes are getting the support they need to succeed.

The report has identified four priority areas including establishing a national focus for regional, rural and remote education, better tailoring research for successful learning, addressing information communication and technology needs and focusing on the transitions into and out of school.

The Coalition remains committed to doing everything we can to make sure regional and rural students not only achieve success at school, but have the opportunity to go on to further study, training and employment.

The Coalition understands the need to bridge the divide between education outcomes in the bush and in the city.

 Unfortunately, what we see is that country kids aren’t always getting the same opportunities as students in our cities.

 Thriving regional and rural communities are key to Australia’s success and they need a high-performing education system.

 Dr Halsey’s report is an important step in outlining the issues that need to be tackled and identifies gaps and room for improvement across a variety of areas of Australia’s education system.

 Most importantly this report highlights there is no silver bullet.

 To address the issues Dr Halsey’s report raises is going to take the concerted efforts of many, including states and territories and everyone from families to teachers and school leaders, to universities and student accommodation managers to preschool educators.

As Dr Halsey has acknowledged, the Coalition already has a range of education reforms underway including our child care and early learning system overhaul, the extra $3.3 billion we’ll be providing regional and remote students under our needs-based schools funding plan as well as the support we’ve locked in for higher education students like our $70 million regional loading or our 1200 regional scholarships.

The Coalition Government will consider the details of Dr Halsey’s 11 recommendations and 53 actions and where appropriate will respond to them to further complement the work we’ve already got underway to boost the outcomes of Australia’s education system.

The full report is available at www.education.gov.au/independent-review-regional-rural-and-remote-education. 

  

Make the switch to new child care and early learning system

Families are being urged to sign on and start their changeover to the Coalition Government’s new child care and early learning system which kicks off in less than three months. 

As more than 4400 families in the Electorate of Parkes are set to benefit from the Coalition Government’s new package it is time for them to “make the switch” to the overhauled system starting on 2 July. 

The online transition portal we’ve set up is live and it’s time for people to take action.

Our new child care package will provide the greatest hours of support to the families who work the longest hours, and the greatest subsidy and financial support to the families who earn the least.  

With more support for more families just around the corner, families should visit www.education.gov.au/childcare and make the switchover as soon as they can so they’re ready for the new system from day one.

The Coalition Government’s overhaul of child care and early learning subsidies and extra $2.5 billion investment in the system will introduce hourly rate caps to put downward pressure on fee increases and abolish the annual rebate cap for most families. 

The biggest winners will be families working, studying or volunteering that earns less than $250,000 a year and even if your family has a higher income, you’ll still stand to gain from our change to lift the annual rebate cap to around $10,000.

Recent changes to the Consumer Price Index have also seen hourly rate caps and annual caps increase and will mean under the Turnbull Government’s child care and early learning package: 

More than 370,000 families earning around $66 958 or less a year will have their base subsidy increase from 72 per cent to 85 per cent 

Families earning up to $186 958, will no longer be limited by an annual $7,613 cap on the amount of child care they can access – that’s more than 85 per cent of families using child care and early learning and means families won’t run out of subsidy mid-year as happens now. 

Families earning between $186,958 and $351,248 will benefit from an increased annual rebate cap of $10,190 per child

Hourly rate caps will rise from $11.55 to $11.77 for Centre Based Day Care, $10.70 to $10.90 for Family Day Care, whilst families with children in Outside School Hours Care will also see their hourly rate cap rise from $10.10 to $10.29.