The Minister for Education, Julia Gillard will tomorrow introduce the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 into the Parliament which will deliver key elements of the Rudd Government's school reform agenda to non-government schools.
The Schools Assistance Bill will introduce new measures to help close the gap in educational attainment for Indigenous students and new transparency measures to ensure all Australian kids are getting a quality education.
The Schools Assistance Bill will deliver on the Rudd Government's commitment to ensure remote and very remote schools with a large number of Indigenous students receive the maximum amount of funding available under the non-government school funding model.
The Schools Assistance Bill will also ensure that the indexation and remoteness classifications of Indigenous specific education programs are aligned with mainstream indexation rather than at a lesser rate.
The Rudd Government is currently in discussions with State and Territory, Independent and Catholic school systems about the next quadrennial funding agreement which will outline funding arrangements for all schools.
In particular, the 2009-2012 National Education Agreement will outline new transparency requirements as well as the National Partnerships on disadvantaged schools, teacher quality and literacy and numeracy being developed through the COAG process.
This Agreement will also facilitate funding for Government schools for the 2009-2012 quadrenium.
Through the Schools Assistance Bill, the Government will ensure non-government schools adopt the new transparency and accountability measures to be contained in the National Education Agreement.
The Schools Assistance Bill also delivers on the Rudd Government's commitment to provide certainty to non-government schools by retaining the current funding model and indexation arrangements.
As announced before the election, the Rudd Government will conduct an open, transparent review of SES funding model over the next quadrennium to see what if any improvements can be made to the model for funding arrangements beyond the 2009-2012 quadrennium.
The Rudd Government's priority is ensuring that every Australian child receives a world class education and every Australian school is a great school.