The Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham got more than he bargained for when he officially opened a $7.3 million rail training centre at the University of Wollongong last Wednesday.
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But having to deal with a bunch of angry students protesting cuts to higher education, was nothing new for Senator Birmingham.
“There is always a few political activists on a university campus who like to protest. There were in my day at uni and there will be for every education minister in the future, I’m sure too,” he told the Mercury.
In an expansive interview with this reporter, Mr Birmingham also laid out the government’s position on a range of education issues, from higher education reforms and the future of TAFE, to school funding, the latest Gonski report and NAPLAN.
Mr Birmingham had some bad news for the chorus of critics calling for the urgent scrapping of NAPLAN.
“NAPLAN as a universal and consistent tool to assess literacy and numeracy is here to stay,” he said.
NAPLAN as a universal and consistent tool to assess literacy and numeracy is here to stay.
- Simon Birmingham
“But we have to make sure that we respond to concerns and we will do that by continually enhancing the building of NAPLAN online and if need be talking to the states and territories about the way the data is reported.
“If a long way down the track, as we apply new technology out of the Gonski report to assessment practices, there's something even better, well then that's a question for down the track.”
He also hit out at NSW Teachers Federation claims that the “termination” of the original Gonski model means the 42 schools in the Gilmore electorate will be denied $19 million of recurrent funding.
“Across the Illawarra region funding for schools from the federal government is forecast to grow from around $155 million this year to about $235 million over the course of the next decade,” Mr Birmingham said.
“So it is strong and real growth in funding coming from the federal government for schools, as there generally is from state governments like the NSW government.
“The question is with all of that extra resourcing, we haven’t been seeing the lift in student performance and outcomes you would hope for.
“So this latest [Gonski] review was not about how much money needs to be invested, but how we best invest the money that we’ve got to get better outcomes from students, and what it’s recommended is that we really focus in on ensuring each student is extended to their full personal capabilities over each year of their studies.”
The student protesters and even UOW management have expressed concern about proposed higher education funding changes, “which could see UOW lose $25 million”, but Mr Birmingham said university funding remained at a record level.
“Indeed, just in this budget we announced another $1.9 billion of new funding for university research infrastructure,” he said.
“So when you look at the total funding stream coming into university from Australian governments for student places, for research investment, research infrastructure projects, that's at record levels and still growing.
We’ve put a freeze on one stream of their funding while still growing other parts of their funding.
- Simon Birmingham
“But we’ve made decisions about ensuring that the funding to universities is sustainable as well. We want to see universities find some efficiencies in their operations.
“We’ve put a freeze on one stream of their funding while still growing other parts of their funding.”
The federal government also announced the creation of a new pool of pathway places into university, specific to regional areas, in its latest budget.
“..Let’s target dollars there rather than what the Labor Party's approach had been and the policy we inherited, which largely allowed every university to write their own cheque by enrolling as many students in whatever areas they wanted.”
Mr Birmingham said Labor was also playing “catch-up politics” on TAFE.
Labor plan to scrap upfront fees for 100,000 TAFE students who choose to learn the skills that Australia needs.
Mr Birmingham said the Turnbull Government had already announced a $1.5 billion ‘Skilling Australians’ fund.
“We are aiming for the creation of 300,000 apprenticeship opportunities around the country...it is about actually getting the apprentices we need trained in great TAFEs but also with other industry partners.”