08 Oct 2021
Equal opportunity for Canberra school students is a strong focus of the ACT Government’s Budget 2021-22, with an additional $51 million going to ACT public school equity programs over the next four years.
The programs increase financial assistance for families in need, increase the number of social and youth workers and make sure our youngest Canberrans have equal access to quality early childhood education.
The Budget also delivers on the next phase of the ACT Government’s ten-year Future of Education strategy, working to improve access, equity and inclusion for all students.
Budget measures include:
- Significantly expanding financial assistance for families in need. A new Future of Education Equity Fund will replace the high school bursary scheme, reaching an estimated five times as many students at an additional cost of $8 million over four years.
- An additional 25 youth and social workers for public schools employed at a cost of $7.4 million over the next four years to provide early intervention and support for students and their families.
- $12.5 million over four years to continue the ACT’s nation-leading, ten-year plan for early childhood education called Set Up For Success. The funds will support providers and services who cater for three-year-old children experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage. The funding will also increase the number of scholarships for an early childhood teacher degree to 12.
- More than $18.3 million dollars over the next four years to ensure all year 7 to 12 public school students have access to a Chromebook. An additional $3 million over four years will provide internet access to any secondary public school student who needs it and fund a new e-safety program.
- Half a million dollars over the next two years to work with young people with disability, their families, and the broader community to review how we deliver inclusive education. It will also help plans to modernise ACT specialist schools in the city’s north.
- Half a million dollars to provide ongoing free and confidential legal advice to ACT public college students, particularly important as cases of domestic and family violence increase during the pandemic.
The package will fund an additional thirty full time equivalent (FTE) positions in education this financial year, which will increase to 58 additional staff by the end of the 2024/25 financial year.
Budget 2021-22 also invests strongly in school infrastructure with $263 million going to building new schools, expanding existing schools and repairs and maintenance.
For the rapidly growing Gungahlin area, the Budget will fund a new public high school in Taylor, support road infrastructure for a new public high school in Kenny and expand Margaret Hendry School.
The Budget funds:
- nine new transportables to ease capacity pressures in public schools
- the design of a new public primary school for Strathnairn in West Belconnen
- continuing work to modernise Narrabundah College, and
- planning to modernise Garran Primary School.