There were smiles and handshakes all round as the country’s deputy opposition leader visited Warrawong High School on Wednesday.
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Labor’s Tanya Plibersek spoke with students, met teachers and even presented an award during the school’s presentation day assembly.
Although the ceremony was a joyous occasion, one celebrating students’ achievements this year, there was underlying sense of the concern on the MP’s mind.
Concern that the very students who sat alongside her in the school hall would be left disadvantaged by a federal government decision to cut education funding.
Labor and the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) say the federal government reneging on the National Education Reform Agreement (NERA) in year four of a six-year deal, would leave Warrawong High $1.4 million worse off over the next two years.
The school has 506 students; 59 per cent of whom are from non-English speaking backgrounds. Most come from low-income families.
“Although it’s a great school, Warrawong has more than 90 per cent of its children who come from the bottom half of families by income,” Ms Plibersek said.
“You think of the difference an extra $1.4 million over the next two years could make to this school, to those programs that the children are being offered and you see how tragic the $17 billion of cuts [across the country] are.”
NSWTF organiser John Black said the NERA was meant to ensure every school operated at the “schooling resource standard”.
Mr Black said the federal government’s decision not to fund the NERA’s final two years meant schools couldn’t offer additional resources such as smaller class sizes or specialist programs.
“We will not go away and we will not give up until those cuts are reversed,” he said.
Ms Plibersek’s visit came on the day this year’s NAPLAN results were released.
“We saw Simon Birmingham, the Education Minister, today talking about NAPLAN results and saying they should be a wake-up call for educators,” she said.
“Well today’s NAPLAN results should be a wake-up call for Simon Birmingham. This is a federal government, in its fifth year of office, that has slammed the brakes on school funding and slammed the brakes on education reform.”
Mr Birmingham refuted the cuts and said the government’s plan would see Warrawong High’s funding grow from $4174 per student in 2018 to $6318 in 2027.
“We’re overhauling Australia’s schools funding system and boosting investment by $23.5 billion across the whole system. There are no cuts,” he said.