On Monday Labor’s Minister for Education, James Merlino, announced the single biggest injection of education funding in Victoria’s history: $4 billion in additional funding has been allocated by Labor for early childhood learning, schools and training in Victoria.
Under this initiative schools in my electorate of Western Victoria Region will receive tens of thousands of dollars in addition to their current budgets, including $369 000 for Warrnambool East Primary School; $324 000 for Colac South West Primary School; $294 000 for Grovedale College; $137 000 for Cobden Technical School; $107 000 for Timboon P–12 School; $104 000 for Portland Secondary College; and $102 000 for Portland Bay School.
The money keeps flowing all across western Victoria, from Heywood to Highton and from Winchelsea to Woolsthorpe.
Whether it is funding to improve school attainment in the south-west or to reduce dropout rates, this historic investment will give students the skills they need for the jobs they want. Labor is giving local schools the funds they need as well as building new 21st century schools to make Victoria the education state.
Over the past two weeks I have visited four sites of five brand-new schools in the Assembly electorates of South Barwon and Polwarth and in Geelong that will be up and running by the first day of term 1 in 2018, including the Bannockburn P–12 school — a school that was mothballed by those opposite but will be built under Labor; Torquay North Primary School; two schools in Armstrong Creek, including a special school; and a new special school for North Geelong.