At its National Executive Council meeting today in Melbourne, the Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA), representing Government, Catholic and Independent sectors, launched a set of questions it will be sending the Coalition, Labor and Greens about their support for primary education and in particular, APPA’s four priorities:
- Science in schools
- Social and Emotional learning needs
- Children with Disabilities
- Greater transparency of school funding.
Click here to download the media release in PDF format. Click here to download a sample of the questionnaire that is being sent to the political parties - in PDF format. APPA has asked the parties to respond by Monday 9 August. APPA President, Ms Leonie Trimper, today said that: “APPA was heartened that at the last Federal election, politicians started to recognize the importance of primary schooling as this is where all Australian children acquire the academic and social foundations for success in later life. However, it remains the case that today the years 3 to 6/7 are still the most under‐funded years in education and that this is where the gap between the most and least successful children widens. As educators we want that gap closed.” Ms Trimper said that APPA will collate and publish each Party’s response to the questionnaire on its website (which averages 500,000 hits per month). Each response will also be sent to all Government, Catholic and Independent primary schools prior to the election. “We want the three political parties to respond to our questionnaire so that school principals, teachers and parents are all able to know where the political parties stand on the importance of primary education.” APPA represents 7,200 principals across more than 7,600 primary schools teaching nearly 2 million primary school students around Australia. APPA’s four priority papers and the questionnaire are available on the APPA website - click here to go to that page.
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