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1999
THE
PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
AUSTRALIA
HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
STATES
GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ASSISTANCE) AMENDMENT BILL
1999
EXPLANATORY
MEMORANDUM
(Circulated
by authority of the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs,
the Hon Dr David Kemp MP)
ISBN: 0642 405387
STATES GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION ASSISTANCE) AMENDMENT BILL
1999
OUTLINE
The Bill amends the States Grants (Primary and
Secondary Education Assistance) Act 1996 (the Act) to give effect to
initiatives announced in the 1999-2000
Budget:
• $36.3
million for 2000 to increase funding under the Literacy and Numeracy Programme
to help schools measurably improve the literacy and numeracy skills of students
in the early and middle years of schooling for 2000. This funding will be
allocated for two initiatives:
Support for the
National Literacy and Numeracy Plan; and
Strategies to improve literacy and numeracy in
the middle years of
schooling.
• $26.4
million for 2000 to extend funding for the National Asian Languages and Studies
in Australian Schools (NALSAS) strategy for
2000.
The Bill also contains provisions
which:
• provide
an additional $10.1 million for each of the programme years 2000 up to, and
including, 2003 for the non-government component of the Capital Grants Programme
to maintain funding at the same real level as for the period 1997 to
1999;
• provide
an additional $1.9 million for Short Term Emergency Assistance (STEA) for 2000
to allow schools experiencing severe financial hardship or facing problems of
viability to apply for STEA during the transitional period to the new SES
funding model for
non-government schools;
and
• make
a minor technical amendment to the headings in the Act to change the name of the
Literacy Programme to the Literacy and Numeracy Programme.
Total grant levels for schools for the 2000 programme
year are estimated to be close to
$4.6 billion.
Funds appropriated for the 2000 programme year are estimated to be some
$3.8 billion for general recurrent grants to
government and non-government schools, $314 million for capital grants to
government and non-government schools, and $454 million for targeted
programmes.
STATES GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION ASSISTANCE) AMENDMENT BILL
1999
NOTES ON CLAUSES
Clause 1 - Short
Title
Clause 1 provides for this Act to be
cited as the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance)
Amendment Act 1999.
Clause 2 -
Commencement
Clause 2 provides for this Act
to commence on the day on which it receives the Royal
Assent.
Clause 3 -
Schedule(s)
Clause 3 provides that each Act
that is specified in a Schedule is amended or repealed as set out in the
applicable items in the Schedule.
AMENDMENT OF THE STATES GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ASSISTANCE) ACT 1996
Item 1 –Part 7
Amends the heading to this Part by adding
“numeracy” to the heading for the grants program - now entitled
“Grants to foster literacy and numeracy”.
SCHEDULE 4
Updates the funding amounts set out in column 2 of the
table in Schedule 4 (“Capital Grants for Non-government schools”)
for the program years 2000 to 2003.
SCHEDULE 5
Item 6
Updates the
funding amount set out in column 4 of the table in Schedule 5 (“Grants of
short-term emergency assistance for non-government schools”) for the
program year 2000.
SCHEDULE 6
Items 7-8
Amends
the heading to Schedule 6 and the heading to the table by adding
“numeracy”. These amendments reflect a change in the grants program
- now entitled “Grants to foster literacy and
numeracy”.
Items
9-11
Updates the funding amounts set out in
columns 2 (Grants to foster literacy and numeracy in government schools), column
3 (Grants to foster literacy and numeracy in non-government schools) and column
4 (Grants for national projects to foster literacy and numeracy in schools) of
the table in Schedule 6 dealing with program year 2000.
SCHEDULE 7
Item
12
Updates the funding amount set out in
column 4 of the table in Schedule 7 (Grants under the Languages Program) dealing
with program year 2000.