National Partnership Agreements
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has reformed its working arrangements through the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA). This Agreement provides a framework for the Commonwealth’s financial relations with Australian States & Territories.
This is accompanied by the rational that the number of Commonwealth payments to States & Territories for Specific Purpose Payments (SPPs) should be reduced from over ninety to five.
Central to these reforms is a substantial financial package that provides an additional $7.1 billion in SPP funding to States & Territories over five years to improve services.
Each SPP is associated with a National Partnership Agreement that contains the objectives, outcomes, outputs and performance indicators, and clarifies the roles and responsibilities that will guide the Commonwealth and Australian State & Territories in the delivery of services across the relevant sectors.
Education based National Partnerships (to date) are:
Improving Teacher Quality;
Literacy and Numeracy;
Low Socio-economic Status School Communities;
Early Childhood Education;
Tafe Fee Waivers for Childcare Qualifications;
Improving Teacher Quality
This National Partnership Agreement is designed to improve teacher and school leader quality to sustain a quality teaching workforce.
Literacy and Numeracy
This National Partnership Agreement will focus on the key areas of teaching, leadership and the effective use of student performance information to deliver sustained improvement in literacy and numeracy outcomes for all students, especially those who are falling behind.
Low Socio-Economic Status School Communities
This Agreement aims to improve student engagement, educational attainment and wellbeing in participating schools, make inroads into entrenched disadvantage (including in Indigenous communities), contribute to broader social and economic objectives and improve understanding about effective intervention that can be implemented beyond the schools participating in this Agreement.
Early Childhood Education
This Agreement concentrates on reforming the delivery of early childhood education and care services through the delivery of universal access to early childhood education with the commitment that by 2013 every child will have access to a preschool program in the 12 months prior to full-time schooling.
TAFE Fee Waivers for Childcare Qualifications
This Agreement is part of the Commonwealth’s Early Childhood Workforce Strategy and aims to develop a child care workforce with high level qualifications to provide a strong foundation for the health and educational development of children. The key output of this Agreement will be that TAFE and other government providers will not levy fees on students undertaking eligible child care courses.
