The state government is spending $1.2 million of funding allocated for public schools on an advertising campaign spruiking five technical colleges it promised to build if elected, it has been revealed.
Key points:
- Labor promised to build five new technical colleges if elected
- It is spending $1.2 million of Gonski funding on an advertising campaign encouraging enrolment at the first of the five to open
- Despite the campaign, there are so far only 42 enrolments Findon Technical College
Under questioning in a budget and finance parliamentary committee hearing on Monday, SA Education Department chief executive Martin Westwell revealed $1.2 million from the department’s budget was being spent on an advertising campaign for its new technical colleges.
“Those technical colleges will serve a wider range of students than perhaps what exists within the local area to each school, because we are promoting that opportunity and letting the students and parents know what’s available, yes, we are using this from that Gonski allocation,” he said.
“This was something certainly the department had been considering for a while.”
Professor Westwell admitted that it was “unusual” for Gonski funding to be spent on such a campaign.
“It’s unusual for us to use Gonski funding to advertise, but I would say that this particular opportunity, which is a really significant opportunity for young people in South Australia, it was worth it,” he said.
“It is the appropriate spend of the money in order to make sure South Australians were aware of this opportunity that we were creating.”
The committee was told the suggestion for the campaign to include TV advertisements came from the education department, but that Education Minister Blair Boyer and Premier Peter Malinauskas were kept up-to-date on the matter.
“I can’t recall the absolute specifics of that, but we certainly had a wide variety of conversations with the minister and the premier around the election commitments and this approach will have been discussed at some point with them,” Professor Westwell said.
“This would have come from the department in terms of how we are rolling out the election commitments and technical colleges and how we are promoting the technical colleges to the community.”
Professor Westwell could not answer when the decision was made to spend $1.2 million on the advertising campaign.
“It was something that was developed over time,” he said.
The advertising campaign is scheduled to end in October.
The education union’s SA branch president Andrew Gohl said the funding needed to be directed towards schools, student learning and support.
“That is what the Gonski money is all about. That is what the School Resource Standard is all about,” he said.
“We need every single dollar in classrooms and hiving that off administratively or hiving it off to advertising campaigns is far from what I would have expected for that money to be spent upon.”
South Australian opposition spokesman, and former education minister, John Gardner said it was an “extraordinary decision” to divert the funding away from its purpose.
“It’s absolutely inappropriate, it’s a bad decision of government,” he said.
“This money is supposed to be going to teaching and learning in our public schools, and instead it’s going on ad campaigns and TV ads for a Labor election promise.
“It’s not appropriate, it should cease and the government should, I think, restore that funding to the public schools budget so it can go to the teaching and learning where it’s supposed to go.”
Mr Gardner said if the advertising campaign was geared towards filling all of the 120 places at the Findon Technical College then it would equate to $10,000 per student.
“That’s an expensive campaign per student by anyone’s reckoning,” he said.
According to the state government, so far there had been 43 enrolments at Findon Technical College with a further 96 expressions of interest.
Minister for Education, Training and Skills Blair Boyer said from the end of July to early August, enrolments jumped by 10 in one week.
“Advertising for new initiatives — such as the new technical colleges — is an important part of telling families, guardians and carers about these new options available to students,” he said.
“It also complements a range of information sessions, webinars and expos to provide career advice.
“This is just another attempt by the Opposition to attack skills investments that South Australians voted for.”
Findon is one of five technical colleges being built, including two located at the Heights High School at the Tonsley TAFE SA site and two regional technical colleges at Port Augusta and Mount Gambier.
Findon will open for the start of next year, while the others are not expected to be ready until 2026.