The Australian Education Union (AEU) has launched its national Gonski tour, which will see four vans with Gonski campaigners cover 22,500kms across Australia before arriving in Canberra on the 18th of March.
The Union hopes to strengthen support for action on Gonski by the federal and state and territory governments. Campaigners will encourage education professionals to make submissions to the Senate Inquiry into School Funding that outline how their schools could benefit from the funding.
“We have a five week national tour planned, arriving in Canberra ahead of the May budget where the future funding of all schools will be decided,” Federal AEU President, Angelo Gavrielatos, said in a statement.
“The May budget this year is a critical test for this government – we’ll see whether [Prime Minister] Tony Abbott plans to honour the five signed Gonski agreements, or whether he plans to deny the extra resources the Gonski Review so clearly showed our kids need.”
Gavrielatos says Abbott has committed less than a third of the federal funding set out in the Gonski agreements and the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia have no guarantees of extra funding.
Where signed Gonski agreements are in place, extra funding has begun to deliver extra resources to schools.
“Tony Abbott must honour the full duration and funding allocation of each of these agreements so that kids are getting the extra support they need at school,” Gavrielatos said. “There is no way that this government can deny our kids the resources they need…”
