Federal Budget 2023: Education sector update

Following the Federal Budget 2023, several announcements were made in relation to the education sector. The biggest beneficiaries of these were in the childcare sector, with additional funding for students and worker training and placements, while the other sectors will also benefit from additional funding for scholarships and apprenticeships. Here’s a closer look at what these changes include.

Childcare

Funding has increased to help build and retain teachers and centre directors (with a focus on regional and remote areas and First Nations peoples), including:

• Subsidies or allowances for training for up to 75,000 people
  
  
• Funding for tertiary students doing course placements for up to 6,000 people
  
  
• Funding for workers undertaking course placements for up to 2,000 people

More funding has also been added to improve the delivery of Additional Child Care Subsidy (ACCS) and detect fraud.

Primary & Secondary sector

Updates for primary and secondary sectors include:

• Funding over 2 years to improve attendance and outcomes in regional Australia
  
  
• Funding for up to 5,000 scholarships to attract more high-quality candidates to teaching
  
  
• Extending teaching bursaries to more people in other careers, focusing on improving diversity in teaching
  
  
• A pilot program to find new ways to reduce teacher workloads and maximise teaching time
  
  
• Funding to raise the profile of the teaching profession in general

Tertiary sector

Updates for the tertiary sector include:

• Extension for two years to the Women in STEM cadetships and apprenticeship programs focusing on women, people with disabilities, First Nations, and regional areas
  
  
• Funding for up to 300,000 TAFE and vocational education training places are to become fee-free to assist with the cost of living challenges
  
  
• Waiver of some minor historical debts connected to transitioning loan details to ATO

Overall, the additional funding to these sectors will be welcomed by the community as a positive step towards investing in education and training. Nevertheless, the budget seems predominately skewed towards training rather than being more encompassing in its approach to the wider issues facing the sector as a whole and there is potentially much more that could be done to help the education sector thrive.

For more information, check out the full coverage from the Federal Budget 2023 here. Alternatively, get in touch with us today to see how these changes could impact you.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the thought or position of Crowe Australasia.