Labor to add $26 million to schools' literacy and numeracy program, offer $50,000 teacher scholarships

A re-elected Labor Government will double its outlay to implement its response to the literacy and numeracy inquiry recommendations in ACT public schools.

Education Minister Yvette Berry said Labor would inject a further $26 million into Strong Foundations, the system-wide program to boost literacy and numeracy outcomes, bringing the total outlay to $56.6 million.

This will still be a lot less than the $98 million promised by the Canberra Liberals, but Ms Berry said $40 million of this would go to small group tutoring, something that had not been successful in other states.

Ms Berry said such a policy needed to be carefully phased in, which was the approach Labor was taking.

“We’re taking a slow and careful, steady but very detailed and concise approach to make sure that when we implement the recommendations through the expert panel, we do that in a way that meets the needs of teachers and school staff that are in our schools right now,” she said.

“We’re not going to do a dump and run and expect our schools just to manage.”

Mr Berry said the extra $26 million would go to upskilling the professional development of teachers, implementing all of the new programs and continuing the Year 1 phonics assessment.

Labor will also introduce $50,000 teacher scholarships – 30 a year over the next four years – to attract more people into the profession.

Ms Berry said these would focus on learning support assistants who were already working in schools or mid-career people looking for a change.

They would also focus on specialist needs such as languages and sciences.

Labor would also provide $300,000 to the School Principals Association for members’ health and wellbeing programs.

It will create a new team of disability inclusion coaches in Belconnen public schools following the successful rollout in Tuggeranong public schools this year.

University of Canberra Dean of Education Professor Barney Dalgarno welcomed the new scholarships particularly because NSW and Victoria had introduced new ones over the last 12 to 18 months.

Professor Dalgarno said they were really well targeted at particular groups and for career changes.

“We find in our programs that often target the teachers who are mature age and coming from other careers into teaching, they bring that kind of life and work experience that makes them better in the classroom, but also better in engaging with parents and families,” he said.

“But there’s a real disincentive for them in studying to be a teacher because of the two years of lost income as they move from their current profession.”

Professor Dalgarno, who was chair of the Literacy and Numeracy Expert Panel, said the faculty had been making changes to its literacy program over the past five years in line with contemporary evidence, what was required under the teacher education expert panel report and the new directions of the ACT Education Directorate in literacy and numeracy.

“We’ve really bolstered our early teaching of reading phonics-based approaches, the general kind of evidence-based pedagogies that all students need in all classrooms,” he said.

Asked if he was comfortable with the pace of the literacy and numeracy rollout in ACT schools next year when it would consist of mostly planning and program development, Professor Dalgarno said that in an ideal world, it would be quicker, but teachers were under pressure.

“These are very significant changes, and you can’t expect somebody to completely change their practice overnight,” he said.

“There are some teachers that have been doing a lot of the things we recommended … but for other teachers, there’s a lot of new professional development, there’s a lot of standard curriculum materials to be developed and you can’t kind of go half baked at something like this.”