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Bendigo schools are set to lose a combined $15.5 million in federal funds through the Turnbull Government’s planned school funding cuts, according to data released by the Australian Education Union, but the figures have been treated with suspicion from Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie.
Parkville College ($2.5m), Bendigo Senior Secondary College ($1.3m) and Bendigo South East 7-10 Secondary College ($1.1m) will seemingly be the hardest hit of the 60 schools in the region in 2018-19 under the federal government’s new needs-based funding plan.
The AEU says its funding cut estimates for the Bendigo electorate have been extracted from a Victorian Education Department analysis.
AEU Victoria Branch President, Meredith Peace, said: “Education should not be politicised by ideological cuts that will see school children in Bendigo and the surrounding regions be left behind by a plan that will rip millions from local schools.”
“Parents can see through their plan. With the data we released today our school communities will clearly see how schools will be affected by Turnbull’s agenda of education cuts.
“We can’t lift student achievements with education cuts – all we will see is a system where some of our most vulnerable school children will fall through the cracks.”
However, a vocal supporter of the federal government’s new school funding model, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, said the AEU had “cherry picked” information, for its own political gain.
“The new needs-based funding model will increase funding to schools in the Bendigo electorate by 66.5 per cent over 10 years,” she said.
Ms McKenzie, who said the percentage equated to an extra $4,500 per student over 10 years, said the ACU’s short-sighted views were unhelpful.
“They (ACU) are playing politics with something that should be bipartisan. The commonwealth government is treating everyone the same,” she said.
The “mythical” figures were part of a labor election pledge in 2013, and have never been associated with the current liberal government, Senator McKenzie said.
“As a commonwealth government we should be treating everyone the same. If different states want to fund differently, that's their decisions,” she said.
The federal government recently committed to an additional $18.6 billion for Australia’s schools over the next decade, starting from 2018.
Funds it said will be distributed according to a model of fair, needs-based and transparent funding.
Legislation for the new reforms entered the House of Representatives this week, and is expected to be debated fiercely in the Senate’s June sittings.