Damo, thank you very much. Look I too, would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. To Melody and everyone from TFA, a happy 15th birthday. It’s a great celebration to Senator Chizza, to Gozza and to Nola. It almost works, doesn’t it? Nola Marino, who’s the Shadow Assistant Minister, was here. I think she’s had to leave, but to all of my parliamentary colleagues, including Senator Sheldon, is he still here? Who is the Chair of the Employment and Education Legislation committee, I work very closely with Senator Sheldon as well. Teach for Australia’s work is absolutely life changing. This is a wonderful celebration of a commitment to teaching excellence. So congratulations on your vision and what you are achieving, particularly in schools which most need your help. It is wonderful to hear stories like we’ve heard tonight, where you know stories of, oh, well, I want to be an investment banker, but I did your program, and now here I am teaching in a primary school, disadvantaged primary school, which is obviously turning around its results. So it’s fabulous also to see the bipartisan support for Teach for Australia, to Ben Rimmer and also Meg Brighton, who’s here from the Department, there is a commitment required, funding commitment this year.
So we are, and I’ll say this to Senator Chizza, so on behalf of Teach for Australia, I am calling for funding certainty. Not nearly as tough as what the State Labor Education Ministers are doing today, but I think at the very least, Teach For Australia needs some funding certainty by the end of the year, of at least $12 million a year, perhaps even more, to keep the program going. So, we love what you do. It is wonderful to see the real impact that your work is having. And Senator Chisholm and I have various disagreements, but there is a third thing that we agree on, and that is on the value of evidence based teaching. And I have to say, despite all of the politics of education, it’s a pretty fraught area at times, it is really significant to see the traction that evidence based teaching is gaining across this country.
Of course, the Minister Jason Clare has embedded evidence based teaching, the teaching of phonics, the grade one phonics test and other really important initiatives in the new National School Reform agreement. Still needs to be signed, and I’ve got some differences of opinion on what should be in that. But the bottom line is, we’re seeing traction. We’ve seen really important traction. Of course, in Tasmania. We’re now seeing it in New South Wales and in Victoria. So it is just wonderful to see that the era of loose learning, as I call it, inquiry based learning, hopefully, is leaving our nation, because still 1/3 of Australian students are not passing NAPLAN. Now I know there’s lots of different results in different schools. Teach For Australia is doing this, some extraordinary results with their NAPLAN, but I think we are all jointly on a mission to raise school standards. So to Taylor, and also to Angus, or Angus and Taylor from Cobrum Secondary School. It was just so wonderful to hear about your stories the difference it’s making. And Taylor to know that you hadn’t even heard about science and you’re now doing chem and maths methods. Sensational. I mean, that’s the stories that really makes a difference.
Congratulations. A very happy 15 years, and long may you reign with a lot of funding support from the Albanese government. Thank you.