VET News

2022-2023 Budget Set to Fund Strong Educational Outcomes

About one million Australian families are being supported by record levels of child care funding, with $11.0 billion forecast to be spent in 2022-23, including $10.7 billion on the Child Care Subsidy alone. This is supported by the early delivery of increased Child Care Subsidy support for families with two or more children aged five years or under.

Australian schools are also continuing to receive record funding, with $25.3 billion in funding in 2022, and $318.9 billion over the period 2018 to 2029.

Additionally, higher education will also receive $20 billion in 2022-23, a record level of annual funding, which will continue to grow over the forward estimates.

See a breakdown of funding targeted across Education and Regional Education below: 

Early childhood education and care

• $19.4 million to support more child care places in regional, rural and remote Australia supporting families to access services and boosting women’s workforce participation.

Boarding schools and regional and remote scholarship support

• $17.3 million to extend a grants program to assist Indigenous boarding providers to better support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarding students and improve their educational outcomes.
• A new $10.9 million Commonwealth Regional Scholarship Program will assist up to 200 families from low-SES communities with the cost of boarding school fees. Eligible families will receive $15,000 per student each year for three years.

Emerging Priorities Program Expansion

• A further $10.4 million will be provided through the Emerging Priorities Program to fund a greater number of projects that assist school communities to respond to emerging priorities, including recovery from COVID-19.

Engaged school classrooms

• $7.2 million will be invested in measures that support inclusive, respectful school classroom environments so that teachers can help their students to achieve their full potential and improve education outcomes.

Respectful relationships, and student wellbeing and mental health

• $6.0 million will support the continued delivery of evidence-based and age-appropriate respectful relationship education materials for primary and secondary school students that align with the Australian Curriculum.
• $6.1 million to support  Life Education Australia to develop educational materials for younger students, covering important issues such as cyberbullying, respect for others, and respectful relationships.
• $5.0 million for the Australian Human Rights Commission to undertake a national survey of secondary school-age students on important issues related to consent education.
• $9.7 million will be directed in new measures to help teachers and school leaders to better understand and respond to the mental health and wellbeing needs of students

Extension of National School Reform Funding

• An additional $62.4 million will be provided to continue support to projects that enable better student educational outcomes through the National School Reform Fund and the Non-Government Reform Support Fund.

Read full media release here.

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Date posted Apr 7, 2022