The New South Wales government has announced that it will inject a record amount of funding into the state's public schools. According to the announcement, the government plans to spend 9.2 billion dollars over the next four years on building new schools and upgrading existing ones right across the state, in what is being framed as the largest such commitment to the public system to date.
A substantial share of that money is directed at Western Sydney, where 4.1 billion dollars of the 9.2 billion dollar total will go towards new and upgraded schools. Among the projects flagged are a new high school in Austral, a new primary school in Austral South and a new high school in Bella Vista, all in suburbs on the city's rapidly expanding south western and north western fringes.
Officials said the heavy focus on Western Sydney reflects how quickly the region has grown. They acknowledged that services, amenities and infrastructure have not really kept pace with the surge in population, leaving newer suburbs short of the schools and facilities that established areas take for granted, and the government cast the spending as an effort to close that gap.
The plan also sets aside money for parts of the state beyond the capital. Around 2.3 billion dollars is to be spent on schools and public early learning centres in regional New South Wales over the same four year period, including a new public school in Dapto, as the government tries to spread the investment to communities outside the major metropolitan growth corridors.
Public early learning centres feature prominently in the package, with the government signalling that early childhood facilities will be built alongside new schools. The stated aim is to concentrate the spending on the population points that are starting to boom, so that classrooms and childcare places are available where families are actually moving and where demand is rising fastest.
The funding was unveiled this morning at a Western Sydney school by the Treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, and the Deputy Premier, Prue Car. Both framed the commitment as a deliberate decision to invest in schools in areas across the state, presenting the record figure as a central plank of the government's wider budget priorities for the years ahead.