LIBERAL candidate for the seat of Shortland, Jenny Barrie, said the government would deliver an additional $48 million to The Smith Family’s Learning for Life program if it were re-elected on Saturday.
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The money would help an extra 24,000 of Australia’s highly disadvantaged children with their educations, Ms Barrie said.
The Learning for Life program already supports about 297 children in the electorate and about 34,000 children across the country.
“More disadvantaged young people in Shortland will be some of the first to receive the additional support that will prepare them for jobs and life after school,” Ms Barrie said.
“The Learning for Life program provides support for low-income and vulnerable families to enable students to stay at school, to finish year 12 or an equivalent, and make the transition from school to work or further education and training.”
In 2015, more than 84 per cent of Learning for Life students were employed or undertaking further education a year after finishing the program, she said.
“Of the remaining 16 per cent of students, four in five were actively looking for work, and one in six had volunteered in the previous four weeks.”
The Learning for Life program asks families to commit to ensure their children attend school regularly and to help them with their education in return for:
- financial support to pay for school supplies such as uniforms, shoes, textbooks; and
- excursions;
- a co-ordinator who works directly with the family and students to overcome barriers to school attendance and achievement, and to connect the family with other support services; and
- access to out-of-school education programs focused on literacy and numeracy and career mentoring.
Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said Learning for Life was a proven way to help parents or carers to do better, in doing so helping students, teachers and schools.
“One of the reasons Learning for Life has been so successful and why the Coalition is investing $48 million is because of the commitments it requires from families to ensure their children are actually going to school and that the financial assistance is targeted and guaranteed to be used for education,” Mr Birmingham said.
“Learning for Life is a ‘hand up’ for families, not a ‘hand out’
"We are determined to tackle disadvantage through a needs-based distribution of our growing and record levels of school funding.
“This program is an example that you don't always need to splash billions of dollars around when careful investments into low-cost but proven measures can make a meaningful difference to tens of thousands of lives.”
A re-elected Turnbull government would deliver a record $73.6 billion for Australian schools over the next four years distributed according to need and tied to evidence-based initiatives, the minister said.