Parents of children in state schools will get a $400 bonus in today's Victorian budget
Parents with children at Victorian state schools will receive a one-off $400 payment for school expenses for each student as part of the state budget, to be handed down later on Tuesday.
The payment is designed to help ease cost-of-living pressures and will also be offered to concession card holders at non-government schools.
The parents of more than 700,000 students will be eligible to receive the payments, which will cost $287 million.
The government says the money will be made available as credit that can be put towards educational expenses in certain categories.
Those categories include uniforms, school camps or trips, swimming or sports programs, outdoor education and excursions.
The money can not be put towards school fees or used for household expenses.
Premier Jacinta Allan said the payments would be rolled out later this year so that parents could prepare for expenses the following year.
“This is for students going into school in the 2025 school year and we’ll be delivering this support for families in term 4 of this year,” she said.
“Right now, parents are already planning for the 2025 school year and we’re wanting to provide them with some support, recognising that the cost of living pressures has seen so much of what we need — the essentials in our daily life — go up [in price].”
The premier would not reveal any other details in Tuesday’s budget, but echoed earlier warnings that it would not be a big-spending affair.
“This will be revealed as a budget that is making the sensible and disciplined decisions that are about recognising the challenges we are faced with, not just here in Victoria but around the country as well,” she said.
The president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, Colin Axup, welcomed the payments but said it could mean extra administration duties for staff.
“Any new policy or any new program like this will add a little bit of a burden, but I think it’s a positive for students and families so I think it’s a burden we need to accept,” he said.
The Australian Education Union has welcomed the $400 payment for families, but says it does not go far enough to solve the bigger issue of widespread under-funding of public schools.
“Families clearly have been finding it tough and any additional support for them to support the education of their children is a really important thing for the government to do,” the union’s Victorian president, Meredith Peace, told Rafael Epstein on ABC Radio Melbourne.
“But we really do need to see the broader issue of school funding addressed.”
Ms Peace said it appeared the $400 payment would cover uniforms, excursions and sports activities, but not laptops.
She added the union would seek clarity on how the payment would be administered to families.
“We certainly don’t want to see significant additional workload from our schools to be able to put this in place,” she said.