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Budget 1999-2000
FACT SHEET
INCREASED ASSISTANCE FOR ISOLATED CHILDREN
- The Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) Scheme has been allocated an additional
$3.9 million in 1999-2000 to increase the Boarding Allowance rates from 1st
January 1999.
- The AIC scheme helps those families living in rural and remote areas whose school age
children do not have reasonable daily access to an appropriate government school. The
scheme provides funding to offset the cost to the family associated with boarding
arrangements for their children to ensure that they have access to schooling on the same
basis as their urban counterparts.
- The AIC’s Basic Boarding Allowance has increased from $2,900 to $3,500 from 1
January 1999 and will increase in line with inflation in the future.
- The maximum amount that can be received under a combination of the AIC’s Basic and
Additional Boarding Allowances has also increased from 1 January 1999 from $3,844 for a
primary student and $4,222 for a secondary student to $4,377 for both primary and
secondary students and will continue to be indexed annually.
- The AIC’s Distance Education and Second Home Allowances and the Pensioner Education
Supplement are being maintained in 1999.
Short term Emergency Assistance for School Term Hostels
- In late 1998 the Commonwealth provided one-off short term emergency funding totalling
$253,000 to 8 School Term Hostels. This was in response to the serious concerns of the
Isolated Children’s Parent’s Association (ICPA) that a number of the hostels
they identified were in such great need of assistance as to have been unlikely to open for
the 1999 school year.
- The 8 Hostels which benefited from this special Federal Government measure are in NSW,
Qld, WA and SA.
- In line with its pre-election commitment, the Government also placed on the agenda of
the MCEETYA meeting with the States in April 1999, the need to find a long term solution
for school term hostels.
Media Release
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