The final report of the Independent Review of Education in Tasmania contains some welcome measures, but if the Rockliff Government is serious about improving educational outcomes they need to make fixing school funding, staffing, and pay and conditions their top priorities.
Education is so important for our society and for the lives of all Tasmanians, but too often we’ve seen this government ignoring the key issues and focusing on their pet projects instead. Too often we’ve seen a political agenda made a priority over things that would make a real difference.
The Liberals’ lack of genuine interest in making sure our schools are properly supported has been on display again in this review process. The government put significant limits on the scope and timeframe of the review, and made sure there could be no scrutiny of their approach to school funding. The result is a report that in many places lacks concrete findings and recommendations.
Even though this review is very limited, there have been some welcome measures suggested, such as in training and wellbeing. These include things the Australian Education Union has been calling for, only to be consistently ignored by the Liberals. We hope the government will now listen.
As the government moves to consider implementing these recommendations, it is crucial they don’t use this report as an excuse for further delaying the ambitious action that is needed in education. We need improvements to school funding, staffing, and pay and conditions to be their key focus.
