Innisfail State College to lose at least three teachers thanks to LNP cuts

Member for Mulgrave Curtis Pitt says because of the LNP Government’s slashing across the education sector Innisfail State College will have at least three less teachers next year.

Mr Pitt said the overall impacts of the LNP Government education cuts are unclear but it is expected it will result in a reduction of teaching numbers in secondary schools across Queensland particularly in regional areas.

“Innisfail State College will start the next school year minus a resource teacher, a head of department and a deputy head of department, thanks to the LNP Government,” Mr Pitt said.

“The reduction in teaching staff will have drastic ramifications for the Innisfail State College and the first to be effected will be our students.

“The LNP Government scrapped key teacher grants and allocations that support and allow for vital professional development to occur.

“They have also callously cut the secondary resource teacher allocation and the long held rounding-up principle, which provided an extra teacher if the number was a fraction,” he said.

Mr Pitt said these cuts will have a dramatic effect right across Queensland, but none more so than in rural and remote schools.

“Queensland is Australia’s only true decentralised state, which means that schools located in rural and remote areas may have only four or five teachers, some with fewer,” he said.

“With the LNP’s reduction in secondary resource teacher allocations, these schools will be faced with an even greater challenge of providing high quality education with one fewer teacher.

“Losing one teacher from a large city school will still hurt, as it strips resources out of that school community, meaning that services will be reduced or covered by other means, such as increased class sizes.

“But in rural and regional schools, losing a teacher will not just hurt, it could be catastrophic as it is even harder to try to cover the gap.

“It could be the difference between the survival of that school or closure.

“It could mean the difference between a child receiving an education and going on to contributing to society or letting a child slip through the system.”