Mascot Public School P & C Visit

Cr Stan Kondilios ( President), Sandy Templeton(VP) Ron Hoenig MP,
Tina De Angeli (Acting Principal), Jenny Hudson, Mark McLean ( Treasurer),
Saj Masum(Secretary) Phillip Agripanidis ( VP) Phillip Karabitsios.

I was delighted to be invited to attend the recent P&C meeting of Mascot Public School. I was really happy to hear how productive the Acting Principal, Tina De Angeli, fellow teachers and P&C members have been in planning for the school including the implementation of better technology resources such as Wifi around the school and Ipads for the children before the end of term. 

I was pleased to also know that the children of the school have been involved in many musical and drama performances along with other programs thus creating a diverse range of talent and skills in the young community.

My attendance at the meeting was to speak to the parents with regard to funding of State Education. I informed the Acting Principal and P&C members of the following: 

· The significant decline in the standard for literacy and numeracy levels in Australia 

· The State Government has cut $1.7 Billion to funding for education and training 

· The State Government has closed 5 regional offices of the Department of Education but these offices do however provide teacher education and training and monitor curricular activity. Their absence will be felt throughout the education system in NSW. I do acknowledge that teachers as educators needed the support of the regional offices to maintain their own professional training and standards for their development and student education welfare. 

· The Federal Government allocated to the State of NSW $1.6 Billion which  was supposed to be on top of the $1.7 Billion not in substitution of it. 

I acknowledge that there have been cuts made to the pre-schooling arrangements as they have impacted on Mascot Public School and having the hours reduced to 15 hours as adopting the minimum as a standard. 

The NSW Labor opposition are regularly raising these concerns in the NSW Parliament. Every student in NSW deserves a quality education and governments should be investing more not less in education in NSW.