Local schools, public, Catholic and independent, are struggling to come to grips with funding cuts and a freeze planned for July next year, Member for Northern Tablelands has told Parliament.
He said he had met with the NSW Teachers Federation and local Catholic School community members who are concerned that the State’s attempt to achieve an estimated $1.7 billion in savings over four years would be counter-productive.
“While the State does face financial constraints, cuts to education funding are always dangerous because their full impact can only be assessed in the long-term when it is usually too late to undo the damage,” he said.
“Access to a good education is the cornerstone of our national fair go culture and it should be regarded as our most important investment in the future and not as another cost centre to be raided to meet expedient budget demands.”
Mr Torbay said the cuts would put a strain on teachers and schools in the public system who would see a reduction in resources as 600 jobs from the Education and Communities Department and around 400 school administrative positions were lost.
Smaller Catholic schools faced closure, while others anticipated a loss of teachers and assistants, larger class sizes, increased fees and a reduction of extra curricula activities. Mr Torbay said one local Catholic school with 200 students faced the loss of half a full-time teacher and an educational assistant. The loss of the education assistant would reduce the support for students with a range of learning difficulties and add to the workload of teachers faced with larger class sizes.
There is concern that the estimated $118M funding loss over the four years for independent and Catholic schools could trigger unaffordable fee increases for some parents and create a further drift to the public system.
The Armidale Diocesan Catholic school system, one of the largest geographically in NSW, including 24 schools and 5644 students, faces pruning back programs that address student disadvantage, learning, disabilities and English language issues, school based literacy and numeracy programs and teacher professional learning, to meet the funding shortfall.
“It is ironic at a time when the Gonski recommendations for a larger investment in education are being seriously considered, that the NSW Government is moving in the opposite direction,” Mr Torbay said. “Most people are shaking their heads at these ill-advised cuts which will remove much needed resources from schools in both the public and private sector and TAFE. I urge the government to consider more carefully the long-term impact of its education cost cutting measures, which may prove more costly in the long run than more shrewd investment at the current time.”