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April 23rd, 2013 
SIGNING up to the Gonski education funding package will “change the face” of NSW schools and remaining state and territory leaders should follow suit, education bodies say.
NSW on Tuesday became the first of the states and territories to sign up to the federal government’s education funding package, set to deliver NSW schools $5 billion over six years.
Teachers unions and education bodies have welcomed the extra funding.
The Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the deal would be an “historic breakthrough” in the way schools were funded.
“Premier (Barry O’Farrell) has signed up to much-needed reforms that will change the face of schools in NSW,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
“These extra funds will start to bridge the divide of disadvantage that plagues our current model of schools funding.”
Mr Gavrielatos said the union hoped the remaining state and territory leaders, who have until June 30 to sign up to the deal, would follow suit.
“It is our firm hope that they will all now take a leaf out of Premier O’Farrell’s book,” Mr Gavrielatos said.
“Parents outside NSW will rightly be asking why their leader would wait any longer to commit to Gonski.”
NSW Teachers Federation president Maurie Mulheron said the remaining state and territory leaders had “no alternative” but to sign up to the deal.
“They have nowhere to hide. Premier O’Farrell has shown that you can put your political interests aside and stop education being a political football,” he told AAP on Tuesday.
Mr Mulheron said the Federation would seek to clarify whether cuts to TAFE announced as part of the deal were part of cuts announced last year or entirely new.
The Public Education Foundation’s chief executive Verity Firth said the reforms would end the debate about public versus private schooling as it provided funding based on need.
“You cannot get a fairer system than that,” she said in a statement.
But the NSW and ACT Independent Education Union said there was a “gaping uncertainty” on how the reforms would affect independent schools and how schools were meant to meet the conditions of the agreement.
The union said it was concerned about what members would need to do in order to get additional resources, and whether it could meet the requirements under the plan, such as individual learning plans for each student.
“These questions, raised on behalf of members in non-government schools, need answers,” IEU general secretary John Quessy said.
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