Kingaroy, Proston, Goomeri and Kilkivan State schools will be worse off under the Gonski education package, the State Government said today.
The four South Burnett schools are among more than 160 Queensland State schools which Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said would be worse off according to the Federal Government’s own figures.
Mr Langbroek said the release of figures to media organisations today proved that Prime Minister Julia Gillard hadn’t kept her promise that the Gonski funding model wouldn’t produce any losers.
“Based on these figures, more than 160 State schools will receive less funding in 2019 than they will under the current arrangements,” Mr Langbroek said.
“This is despite the Prime Minister cutting billions of dollars in kindergarten and university funding.
“Julia Gillard made a promise that no school would be worse off under Gonski and her own numbers prove that she has broken this promise.”
Mr Langbroek said the Newman Government had increased education spending by 6.6 per cent in last week’s Budget but under the Federal Government’s Gonski proposal 160 state schools in Queensland would only receive “paltry” increases of 3 per cent per year.
“Parents, teachers and principals know that the cost of education is going up more than 3 per cent,” he said.
“That’s why the Newman Government increased education by 4.6 per cent last year and 6.6 per cent this year.
“In two years we’ve increased spending by almost four times more than what is proposed for these 160 State schools.”
Mr Langbroek said what was even more alarming was that these figures only included State schools when it was known that non-State schools would be the hardest hit by these reforms.
“The Newman Government revealed a number of weeks ago that around 300 Queensland schools, state and non-State, would be worse off under Gonski and the release of this latest batch of numbers has revealed that this is indeed the case,” he said.
