Tomorrow the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP, will introduce legislation to make Australian Government funding for schools conditional on state and territory governments and non government providers implementing key requirements. These requirements underpin the Australian Government's Schools Agenda which will shape our schools over the next decade.
As a condition of funding, education providers will be required to implement:
a common school starting age by 2010. This will assist the 80,000 school children annually who move across state borders and who currently may have to skip or repeat a year at school;
a minimum physical activity requirement of two hours per week for primary and junior secondary school students, as an important measure in addressing childhood obesity;
greater national consistency in curriculum and testing standards in English, mathematics, science and civics;
better reporting to parents, including plain language reports on their own child's progress, reporting literacy and numeracy results against national benchmarks, and meaningful information on school quality including teacher qualifications and overall student outcomes;
a National Safe Schools Framework to help ensure schools are, as far as possible, free from bullying and abuse; and
greater autonomy for school principals.
The Agenda also includes significant commitments to:
accelerate Indigenous education outcomes, to which the Australian Government is committing a record $2.1 billion over the next four years;
careers education and transitions, on which the Australian Government will spend more than $214 million over the next four years;
teachers' professional development, in which the Australian Government is investing more than $159 million through the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme over 2000-2005; and
values education. The government announced in the 2004-05 Budget a commitment of $34.7 million over four years for values, civics and citizenship education initiatives, including values forums in every school as part of its work towards a National Framework for Values Education.
Finally, I am pleased to announce with the Minister an additional $19.4 million over four years to support better approaches to boys' education. Boys have been falling behind on important education indicators including literacy and numeracy and Year 12 retention. This new funding will build on the government's existing investment of $8 million in the Boys' Education Lighthouse Schools initiative which, since 2003, has developed and showcased good practice in boys' education. Our new commitment of $19.4 million will provide $10,000 to up to 1600 schools to lead other schools in developing better strategies for meeting the educational needs of boys.
The Australian Government is committed to supporting a quality school education for all Australian children. The Australian Government's record funding levels for schools will continue to support choice for parents in selecting the school environment that best meets their children's needs - whether that is in state schools or in Catholic and Independent schools. While state schools are primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments, over the next four years the Australian Government will provide $9.8 billion to those governments in supplementary funding for state schools. This is an increase of $1.9 billion over the 2001 to 2004 period.
Australian Government funding for state schools has increased at a faster rate than state and territory government funding. Last year's Budget figures showed that Australian Government funding to state schools increased by 5.5 per cent over the previous year compared with an estimated 2.1 per cent from state and territory governments. It is important also to note that 44 cents in every dollar of total state and territory revenues comes from the GST and Australian Government payments.
In the Catholic and Independent school sector for which, with parents, the Australian Government takes primary funding responsibility, the Australian Government is also committed to providing extra support for school communities who need it the most. We are providing more than $21 billion for Catholic and Independent schools over 2005 to 2008, including an estimated extra $362 million to bring Catholic school systems into the socio economic status funding model.