The Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party has published a NSW education policy, which states that:
Access to education is a human right, access to quality education is a collective responsibility between educational institutions, teachers, and Government. This is to ensure that students experience a quality education that is consistent across every NSW school, not just city schools.
Our students will need to navigate the challenges of the 21st century such as globalisation, new technologies, migration, international competition and changing markets. What is key for our students thriving in this century is a proficiency in literacy and numeracy, as well as healthy personal development through outdoor recreational activity.
The disparity between regional and metropolitan schools in terms of cuts to funding, maintenance backlogs, and educational outcomes is astounding and in need of immediate review.
The policy focusses primarily on schools education, and the “action plan” includes:
- Support for the development and expansion of the TAFE system and oppose any funding cuts, especially in regional NSW.
- Introduction of legislation that would mandate a commitment to cover all the shortfalls in Federal Gonski funding with state funds.
- Support for programs and initiatives that will challenge and broaden student perspectives on key issues that will affect them post school.
- Support for programs and initiatives that will increase literacy rates amongst Indigenous and at risk young people.
In addition, the party’s Service Delivery policy includes a statement that:
Government services, wherever possible, should be decentralised to provide economic stimulus and employment opportunity to regional NSW. We will support moving away from centralised, city-based Government decision making to regional-inclusive decision making where regional stakeholders’ views will be heard and taken into account.
The Service Delivery policy also calls for:
- Better incentives and packages for skilled workers living or moving to regional areas temporarily or permanently.
- Support for the expansion and upgrade of regional water, rail, roads and ports to develop the skills necessary among regional citizens, and opposition to the sale of strategic public assets currently in public ownership.
CCA comment:
The party’s policies are framed through its original purpose of supporting rural and regional shooters and fishers, and with a statement of support for TAFE as its only comment on VET and post-secondary education. The party’s focus on regional and rural NSW, on decentralisation, on increasing literacy rates of Indigenous and at risk young people, and maintaining & investing in public infrastructure are all consistent with CCA’s own policy platform and priorities.
