Realising Our Potential — schools

Parents are entitled to expect that their children will receive a high quality school education and develop the core skills they need to realise their potential.

Australian schools generally perform well by international standards. However, too many students are failing to acquire the basic skills they need to succeed throughout their lives.

The Australian Government provides significant funding for schools, some $33 billion over 2005-08, and has an important role to play in improving the quality of education and helping those students currently falling behind.

Realising Our Potential guarantees that children who need help can get it by providing $632 million in direct assistance for schools and students.

This includes $700 tutorial vouchers for parents to help children who do not meet national literacy and numeracy benchmarks and rewards of up to $50,000 a year for schools that improve literacy and numeracy outcomes.

A further $211 million of initiatives focus on providing greater national consistency in the delivery of schooling and improving teaching quality, including through the establishment of Summer Schools for Teachers.

Australian Government funding through the next schools funding agreement will be tied to States, Territories and other education authorities improving quality by:

• introducing national teacher training and registration standards and core curricula standards in Years 10-12
• providing greater principal autonomy
• providing performance-based remuneration to encourage and reward quality teaching
• requiring comprehensive reporting of school and student performance.