Peter (President Pete) and I attended the 2026 Education Policy Forum.
Ahead of the State Election, attendees heard directly from the Hon.Blair Boyer, Minister for Education, Training and Skills and Mr.Jack Batty, Shadow Minister for Education, who outlined their education priorities and responded to questions from participants. The room was engaged, the discussion was meaningful, and the focus was firmly on the future of our schools and preschools.
Our association sent some questions to the panel ahead of this event:
1. Equity for small schools (with regional context)
Within the Department’s commitment to equity and excellence, how will you ensure that children and students in small schools across South Australia—many of which are in regional and rural communities—have access to the same breadth of learning opportunities, staffing allocation and targeted resources as larger sites, regardless of enrolment size or location?
2. Inclusive education and the IESP process
In delivering on the state’s inclusive education agenda, how will you strengthen the IESP model so that small schools can implement timely and sustainable adjustments for students with disability without repeatedly drawing on limited core teaching and learning budgets?
3. Infrastructure as an equity and workforce enabler
Through the capital works and maintenance planning processes, what concrete commitments will you make to a needs-based infrastructure funding approach that enables small and regional schools to provide safe, contemporary and inclusive learning environments without relying on already constrained site budgets or local fundraising capacity?
4. wellbeing, safety and sustainability in small sites
In the context of the workforce strategy and the focus on wellbeing for learning, how will you ensure that staffing allocations, access to specialist expertise, leadership time and workload settings are differentiated to reflect the complexity of small schools, where leaders teach and support structures are limited?
Whilst our questions were not directly answered, they joined the collective voice of education professionals seeking clarity and action post the 2026 State election.
We now look forward to working alongside the newly appointed Hon.Lucy Hood, Minister for Education, Training and Skills and Minister for Autism, in being the small school voices, as she implements the Labor Education Plan.
Attachments
- Better Quality Education PDF, 845 KB
