What’s in the Qld budget for education?

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick has allocated $1.274bn to education in the state budget handed down on Tuesday whilst focusing on cost-of-living relief, following suit with the other budgets announced this year.

Educators

Thousands of additional teaching support staff will be hired and more professional resources allocated, including 2000 extra teaching support staff to help students living with disability.

More than $196m will be spent on measures such as increasing free kindy hours to 30 hours per week for four-year-olds in discrete communities, funding 36 additional early childhood co-ordinators and another 84 family support coordinators to work with high-needs state primary school children in 219 state primary schools.

GPs in schools

A total of $21m over four years will continue the GPs in Schools program, providing 50 government schools with secondary-aged students with access to a free primary healthcare service one day per week.

The program is meant to remove barriers some students face in seeing a doctor, and is supported by a separate investment of $10.7m for health practitioners in 20 priority primary schools.

Infrastructure

A new primary school in Park Ridge and a new secondary school in Collingwood Park, both of which are south of Brisbane, will be built and open by 2025 with a combined $151m investment.

Another $117m will be put towards a land acquisition fund that will search for and acquire land to build new schools and expand existing ones.

Fast-enrolment growth schools will share $342.2m for additional facilities, and critical infrastructure upgrades will be resolved with $144.8m. Specific schools that will receive funds can be found in the budget papers.

First Nations students

The budget says the Queensland government will partner with non-government Indigenous community organisations to support First Nations school students, which will see a total of $15m go to those community voices.

Housing for First Nations families will receive $5.8m and $270k for a co-designed First Nations leadership program for young First Nations parents, the details of which are to be announced.

Sporting kids

Families are getting a $200 voucher for every child aged between five and 17 years to participate in junior sport at a cost of $40m.

Under the current FairPlay program, parents, carers or guardians can apply for a voucher valued up to $150 for their child to use towards their sport and active recreation membership, registration or participation fees.

The government is expanding that program by increasing the value of the voucher to $200 and kicking up the total number of vouchers from 50,000 to 200,000.

Since the program began in 2019, more than $30m has been redeemed by activity providers, with more than 210,000 vouchers used by eligible families.

Other highlights include:

• $15m in funding for the School and Community Food Relief Program, including $10.7m to deliver food programs in schools from term 3, 2024, in addition to the $2m in funding for food programs received in Term 4, 2023
• $65.5m over three years for additional projects under the Playgrounds and Tuckshops Program
• $4.9m over two years, 2024-25 to 2025-26, to continue to deliver the Homework Centre program in schools, which provides on-site support for students in up to 120 state schools to complete homework outside of school hours