I am writing in regards to our government’s decision to replace the Education Tax Rebate with the Schoolkids Bonus under the recently released Federal Budget. According to the government, the payouts under the Bonus will assist families that are doing it tough with the costs of their child’s education.
My initial response to this was positive, because by streamlining the processes for parents to access funding support for the education of their child, we would see greater opportunities for kids in disadvantaged families to attain educational outcomes. However, now that I have seen the Bonus in practice I am starting to realise that there are deficiencies in the ways that we are delivering this Bill. It is all very well that we hand out money to families, but I would raise the question about whether this money is actually used on the purposes intended, to support the education of their children.
I regularly teach some of our kids at our Youth Off The Streets Key College, Chapel Campus in Merrylands. Recently one of my Year 11 students, who is having a baby in two months, stated that she does not receive any financial support whatsoever from her parents. She is able to come to our schools because we do not charge anything for a young person to receive an education and we often support them in other aspects of their lives as well. So where would the money go?
It is clear that there is a risk that the money sent to most of the families for the secondary education of a child will not be spent on their education. By freely giving money to families without any responsibility of how the money will be spent, we are putting parents on a path of temptation to spend the Bonus on anything that they wish to spend it on at the time. We need to ensure that there is some level of accountability of parents to spend the money on the education of their children. What we need to be doing is ensuring that our school kids are actually benefitting from the Bonus and that disadvantaged young people are actually receiving the support that they need.
Father Chris Riley
Chief Executive Officer
Youth Off The Streets Ltd
