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The Northern Territory will be among the biggest losers from
Gonski 2.0, with the Turnbull government’s $18.6 billion education reforms
leaving 344 schools with less funding than they would have received under
Labor’s previous model. While much has been made of how this applies to
prestigious private institutions such as Sydney Grammar School, there should be
more focus on why 151 government schools in Australia’s most educationally
challenged territory will be worse off than they would have under the original
Gonski model.
It is well worth mentioning that more than 9,000 schools
throughout Australia will get a financial boost, with Education Minister Simon
Birmingham pointing out that “funding for government schools in the Northern
Territory will increase by $39 million over the next four years and almost $69
million over 10 years.” However, is this really a fair trade off when you
consider more than a third of the negatively affected schools are from the Top
End?
The fundamental ideology behind Gonski has always been that
it is a ‘needs-based model’, designed to provide support for students from
Indigenous, low socio-economic, regional and remote backgrounds. It’s fair to
say that government schools in the Northern Territory would have plenty of
students that fall into one or more of these categories.
Gonski 2.0 has certainly filled in plenty of blanks about the direction of funding in the Australian school sector but there are still several questions that remain unanswered.
18th September 2017
05th March 2018
22nd May 2017
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