The Albanese Government is delivering Cheaper Child Care, taking action to respond to immediate education workforce challenges and building a better and fairer education system for the future.
The Budget delivers targeted investments across early education, schools and higher education and builds on our Cheaper Child Care investment.
From July, more affordable early childhood education and care will become a reality – providing cost-of-living relief for around 1.2 million Australian families.
For the average Australian family on about $120,000 with a child in care three days a week, the changes deliver real cost of living relief of about $1,700 a year.
Central to building a better and fairer education system is investing in the teachers, educators and support staff that make the system work.
The Budget invests $72.4 million in crucial initiatives to support early educators, including professional development opportunities.
There is a further $9.3 million to implement the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Teacher Workforce Action Plan, building on the $328 million already invested.
The Budget also includes $40.4 million in additional funding for schools in Central Australia to increase school enrolment, student engagement and improve learning outcomes.
In higher education, the Budget delivers $128.5 million to fund 4,000 additional university places over the next four years, to boost the number of graduates from STEM disciplines and support the AUKUS program.
Of these additional places, 800 will be allocated to South Australian universities, with the remaining places allocated across the country.
Importantly, the Budget represents a downpayment on the Government’s big reform initiatives underway across early childhood education, schools, and higher education ensuring our children and young people can access a quality education no matter where they live or their background.
Key Budget Measures:
Early Education and Care
- To complement the Cheaper Child Care reforms, a further $72.4 million will be invested in early education workforce measures, including:
- $34.4 million that will help around 75,000 early childhood educators to complete professional development training;
- $33.1 million to support up to 6,000 existing educators as they work to complete current studies, and
- $4.8 million to connect up to 2,000 students who are studying to become teachers with services to complete placements and strengthen workforce supply.
- These workforce measures also support the positive outcomes being delivered through the Community Child Care Fund (CCCF). The Government is providing half a billion dollars over four years for the Fund to support early education and care services in communities experiencing disadvantage, and ensure services in regional and remote areas stay open, including when something unexpected happens.
- Improving access to early childhood education and care for vulnerable or at-risk children by streamlining the process for Additional Child Care Subsidy (child wellbeing) applications.
- Boost safeguards against Child Care Subsidy fraud and non-compliance so that taxpayers’ money supports the delivery of genuine early childhood education and care.
Schools
The Budget builds on our $328 million investment to tackle teacher shortages, which includes:
- 4,000 additional university places for education, including 1,972 places for primary and secondary teachers.
- Funding for 5,000 scholarships and the High Achieving Teachers program to attract more high-quality candidates into teaching.
- $25 million to pilot new ways to reduce teacher workloads and maximise the time they have to teach.
- $10 million for a national communications campaign to raise the status of the teaching profession.
- $10 million to support teachers in phonics, classroom management and programs in leadership.
The Government will also broaden eligibility for teaching bursaries of up to $40,000 to include mid-career professionals, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and other underrepresented communities.
New Budget measures include:
- A further $9.3 million to deliver outcomes from the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Teacher Workforce Action Plan, including:
- ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ guidelines to better support early career teachers and new school leaders.
- Increasing teacher supply by prioritising conditional or provisional registration.
- Improving teacher workforce data to better understand future demand for teachers.
- $32.8 million will enable the Clontarf Foundation to extend their program in 2024, supporting up to 12,500 young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men to improve their confidence, school engagement, year 12 attainment and post‑school pathways.
Higher education
Universities will be critical to tackling skills shortages, building the future workforce and providing the technical workforce necessary to support Australia’s engagement in AUKUS and develop our sovereign industry capability.
This Budget builds on the 20,000 additional Commonwealth supported places to give students from under-represented backgrounds opportunities to study in areas of national priority, as well as 320 additional medical places over four years to bolster Australia’s regional health workforce.
New Budget measures include:
- $128.5 million to fund 4,000 additional university places over the next four years, to deliver graduates from STEM disciplines to support the AUKUS program.
- 800 places will be allocated to South Australian universities, with the first 200 places commencing in 2024.
- An additional $4.3 million per year invested in the Higher Education Disability Support Program to better engage and support students with disability to access, participate, and succeed in higher education.
- The Women in STEM Cadetships and Advanced Apprenticeships program will be extended by two years, providing more time for women to participate.
- The program provides $25.1 million to support up to 600 employed women to pursue an industry-relevant pre-bachelor higher education STEM qualification, part-time.
The Albanese Government is building a better and fairer education system from early education right through to university.
