Lowan electorate
Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:49): (6188) My question is to the Minister for Education, and the information I seek is: why is funding for support staff at regional public schools contingent on an assessment of incoming students whereas metropolitan schools instead receive a recurrent amount based on historical allocations? This system unfairly pre-emptively cuts funding to regional schools and results in support staff having their hours cut or being made redundant at the end of the school year. We lose great staff who have experience, and then the school cannot re-engage them until these students have been reassessed. Now, in our area it has been four years for some of our schools to be able to get a school nurse to undertake these assessments. I simply ask the minister: can you make the system fair for kids in rural and regional areas? Can we have the same system you have in metropolitan schools where there is recurrent funding rolled over in the school year for support staff so we do not end up with the first part of the year, at the very least, where kids who need that support do not have access to the support they deserve?