By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
A BERWICK primary school principal fears his peers are becoming “increasingly disenchanted” after last week’s Federal Budget revealed significant funding cuts to the education sector.
An $80 billion cut to education and health spending over the next decade and the removal of the final two years of the Better Schools funding agreement, also known as Gonski, will hit at the heart of local schools according to Berwick Lodge Principal Henry Grossek.
The Federal Government will honour its existing Better Schools funding arrangement over four years to the end of 2017 but will negotiate new agreements with the state and territories from 2018.
Mr Grossek said schools in Casey were already under-resourced and feared the Federal Government appeared to be “washing its hands” of public education.
“Given that the Federal Government and State Government are hell-bent on autonomy for schools, these cuts are going to make it much more difficult at school level to continue to provide a range of programs and services that we currently do,” he said.
“It’ll be a big problem in terms of meeting the needs of children with disabilities, that’s an area of growing demand in all schools; schools are already straining to meet the needs of those students adequately.”
Mr Grossek also questioned the Federal Government’s decision to extend the National School Chaplaincy Program, worth more than $240 million over four years, while scrapping funding for non-religious counsellors.
La Trobe MP Jason Wood said the “growth rate” of education funding was being pulled back, but not cut.
“In reality what’s happening with schools funding are not cuts, it is a winding back of the growth rate of funding to schools,” he said.
“We’re currently working with State Governments to come up with alternative arrangements as well.
“I’ve been speaking with principals in the area and so far I’ve had no feedback with direct concerns about the budget, but I’ll also be visiting more local schools this Thursday and again I’ll be asking the principals to give me their first-hand feedback.
“At the end of the day, I will always fight to ensure that La Trobe has the education resources that it needs.”
