More waste: Labor’s literacy and numeracy wipe-out
14 Jun 2012
Media release The Auditor-General has found Labor’s literacy and numeracy national partnership has produced no improvement in student outcomes despite $540 million in payments over the last four years, the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne said today.
“The Prime Minister and Minister for School Education frequently proclaim the Literacy and Numeracy National partnership as one of Labor’s greatest achievements,” Mr Pyne said.
“The Auditor-General has concluded that NAPLAN data from 2008 to 2011 indicates it is yet to make a statistically significant improvement in literacy and numeracy in any State,” he said.
“This $540 million would have been better spent on expanding the Howard Government’s highly effective literacy and numeracy vouchers programme that was dumped by Julia Gillard in 2008 to appease the education unions.
“Funding an ineffective programme for years that fails to produce results is a terrible indictment on Labor’s education credentials.
“The report says the process of ensuring the co-investment required from the states under the partnership is highly contentious with some states receiving payments, approved by the Federal Minister, without meeting their co-investment obligations.
“Put simply this means that the Auditor has found evidence of cost-shifting between the Commonwealth and some States with respect to investment in literacy and numeracy programmes.
“The Auditor also concluded that there was not a structured approach to implementation, performance indicators or the reform targets, that are the basis for making reward payments to the States, casting doubt over the validity of the entire partnership.
“This is yet another example of Labor and the Prime Minister being incapable of running a programme and incapable of ensuring value for taxpayer’s money.
“The Coalition has been saying for years that despite the billions spent on the national partnerships, we have seen little improvement.
“Now the report card is in on the literacy and numeracy partnership and we find it has failed to meet its objective of improving literacy and numeracy, it lacks accountability, it lacks transparency and it lacks any semblance of good policy making,” Mr Pyne said.
June 14, 2012