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Education for life – realising our potential

The Australian Government will boost investment in the Education, Science and Training portfolio with an unprecedented $5 billion in a perpetual Higher Education Endowment Fund and additional spending of $4 billion over four years, including the $3.5 billion ‘Realising Our Potential’ package. This historic investment includes a major reform package which will fundamentally reshape the university landscape and drive quality improvements in Australian schooling.

The package provides unparalleled support for a range of initiatives that will go to the very heart of ensuring Australia’s future economic prosperity and will allow Australians to realise their potential through life-long learning.

"The Australian economy depends on its most precious and important resource – its people," the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, said.

"A well-educated and skilled population increases workforce participation and allows every Australian to make a contribution to the broader Australian community."

The 2007-08 Budget puts in place a blue print that will deliver a responsive, flexible, high quality and targeted education system to equip Australians for the workplaces of the future.

An unprecedented investment in higher education has been achieved through the establishment of a new, ongoing, $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund which, together with a range of other measures, will fundamentally reshape the Higher Education landscape. This will allow more of our universities to be world class and encourage greater excellence, diversity and specialisation in the sector.

Features of the additional investment in Higher Education include:

• $556.9 million over four years for the Increasing University Funding measure which will simplify university funding structures and provide additional funding for key disciplines particularly in areas of skills need;
• $211.2 million over four years for the Allowing more Responsive Universities which will give universities the ability to adjust student numbers and course mixes to respond to student demand and address skills needs;
• $208.6 million over four years to create the new Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund to assist universities to diversify, specialise and provide learning and teaching enhancement projects that focus on local skills needs. Priority will be given to regional and smaller metropolitan universities which can demonstrate the greatest need for structural reform;
• $77 million over four years to help teacher education students gain more practical experience working in classrooms before they enter the profession; and
• $222 million to improve access to tertiary education for students by: increasing the number of Commonwealth Scholarships; extending eligibility for Rent Assistance to Austudy recipients; and extending the eligibility for Youth Allowance and Austudy to students undertaking approved Commonwealth funded Masters by coursework.

The $5 billion endowment fund will provide a guaranteed and ongoing stream of earnings to the sector, amounting to $912 million over three years from 2008-09, to contribute to improved capital works and research facilities. The Government intends to make further investments in the Fund from future Budget surpluses.

Around 3.4 million students from over 9,600 schools and school communities across Australia will benefit from more than $1.2 billion in additional funding over four years. This additional funding takes the total level of investment by the Australian Government for schooling to over $10 billion in 2007-08.

This Budget includes:

• $457.4 million over four years for the National Literacy and Numeracy Vouchers programme which will provide direct assistance to parents of students who have not achieved minimum standards in reading, writing and mathematics in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 so that they can get additional help for their children;
• $101.7 million over four years for a new Australian Government Summer Schools for Teachers programme to provide additional professional development and improve the quality of teaching in the major disciplines of Literacy and Numeracy, English, Maths, Science and Australian History;
• $53.2 million over four years for the Rewarding Schools for Improving Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes initiative to allow schools that can demonstrate sustained improvements measured against student literacy and numeracy achievement to apply for a grant of up to $50,000;
• an additional $127.8 million over four years to assist with intensive English as a Second Language (ESL) tuition for students entering Australia under a range of visa categories in the Humanitarian Programme;
• $195.9 million over two years to extend the highly successful Investing in our Schools Programme and provide further support over and above that provided to the 7,600 government and non-government schools that have been assisted already through this Programme;
• $121 million over four years to support students in more than 400 regional and remote non-government schools achieve better educational outcomes;
• $14.5 million over three years for a new pilot programme National Student Aptitude Test for Tertiary Admission, to trial the use of aptitude tests by universities as an alternative or supplementary method to tertiary entrance scores for assessing prospective Year 12 students each year;
• $13 million over two years to work with states and territories to develop core curricula standards in English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Australian History for Years 11 and 12; and English, Maths, Science and Australian History for Year 10, to assist in raising standards in schools. Adopting the resulting standards will be a condition of Australian Government funding from 2009 onwards; and
• $5 million over two years for the national teacher training and registration standards initiative, to work with the states and territories and other stakeholders in developing a national framework to improve teacher education, and ensure more consistent, high quality teaching across Australia.

In addition to the total funding provided for schools in this year’s Budget, the Australian Government will, from 2009, require that government and non-government education authorities focus on improving school standards and quality including through:

• introducing national teacher training and registration standards to improve the skills of new teachers;
• including external assessment as part of Year 12 certificates and common descriptions of levels of achievement;
• introducing greater principal autonomy in school management and teacher employment arrangements;
• introducing performance-based pay for teachers to encourage and reward excellent teaching;
• reporting school and student performance against national benchmarks (including literacy and numeracy results), with school and state comparisons; and
• encouraging states to establish selective high schools.

An additional $214 million in increased education and training funding to support Indigenous Australians highlights the Australian Government’s national leadership role in education and recognises its Australian Government’s commitment to support choice and opportunity for Indigenous young people.

The 2007-08 Budget will provide:

• $36 million to expand the Indigenous Youth Leadership Programme from the current 250 scholarships to 1,000 over four years;
• $33.2 million to expand Indigenous Youth Mobility Programme places from the current 640 places to 1,500 over four years;
• $27.7 million for 1,000 Indigenous higher education students annually, particularly those who need to relocate from rural and remote areas, to receive a one-off payment of $4,000 to take up a university or enabling course;
• $5.1 million for enhancements to ABSTUDY;
• $50 million to assist non-government boarding schools, particularly those in remote and regional areas that accommodate Indigenous students and a $15.3 million investment for urgent upgrades to accommodation facilities;
• $21.4 million over four years to fund projects aimed at attracting, engaging and supporting Indigenous adults in regional and remote communities to take up training opportunities in their local area, particularly through the Australian Government’s Work Skills Voucher programme;
• $15.0 million to convert around 200 Community Development Employment Project positions into jobs in the education sector; and
• $10.2 million to complete the preservation of a unique historical and cultural resource collection held by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

A major package of new initiatives in this Budget will build on the $837 million Skills for the Future package introduced in 2006. The new measures will support the Australian Government’s plan to restore the value of technical and vocational training, to help ensure that a high quality technical qualification is as prized as a university degree.

This Budget provides:

• $83.6 million over five years in funding to establish three additional Australian Technical Colleges in northern Perth, southern Brisbane and the greater Penrith region of New South Wales;
• funding of $342.5 million to provide all first and second year apprentices under 30 with a tax free, $1,000 per annum wage "top up", and funding of $206.4 million to provide first and second year apprentices of any age in trades in identified skill shortage up to $500 each year towards their course fees, to boost apprenticeship wages in trades facing a skills shortage;
• $58.5 million to assist Registered Training Organisations to work with industry and local employers to develop and implement ‘fast-track apprenticeships’;
• FEE-HELP will be extended to full-fee-paying students in Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses that are accredited as VET qualifications, where agreed credit for a university degree is available to the student; and
• $8.7 million in new funding over four years to assist people with a disability to access post-school education and training.

Funding of $6.5 billion in 2007-08 marks the highest amount ever spent by any Australian Government on science and innovation programmes. This will build on the significant investment from the seven-year, $5.3 billion commitment made in 2004 through the Backing Australia’s Ability – Building our Future Through Science and Innovation package.

This Budget includes:

• $50 million in support of the Australian Synchrotron in addition to a substantial package of funding for medical research facilities through the Health portfolio; and
• increased funding of $8 million over four years for Australia’s four Learned Academies.

CSIRO will receive $2.8 billion including $244.5 million for new measures over the next four years:

• $174 million to support an expansion of the Flagships programme;
• $51.7 million to support construction of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder;
• $16.8 million for the Australian Animal Health Laboratory to improve diagnostic testing of new and emerging diseases; and
• $2 million to develop a Wellbeing Plan for Children.

ANSTO will receive $61 million for new measures:

• $22 million to support the operation of the new OPAL reactor;
• $35 million for the automation of Radiopharmaceuticals and Industrials production processes; and
• $4 million for low-level radioactive waste compaction equipment which will substantially reduce the volume of low-level waste stored at ANSTO.

AIMS will receive an additional $5 million to support research into marine ecosystems in northwest Australia which will underpin the environmental protection and sustainable use of marine resources.

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