July 14, 2010
The Nationals Member for Gippsland Darren Chester is calling on the new Federal Education Minister to immediately overhaul the Youth Allowance ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ classification rules which discriminate against regional students in Gippsland.
Mr Chester said the changes implemented by former Education Minister and now Prime Minister Julia Gillard have created artificial divisions between towns, and even within individual classrooms.
Under the Gillard model, students who live in towns such as Sale, Maffra and Yarram are classed as ‘inner regional’ meaning they face tougher eligibility requirements than students who may live a few kilometres away but are classified as ‘outer regional’.
“The debate over student income support is far from over. There are too many winners and losers in regional areas under the new Youth Allowance system and classrooms are being divided by ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ classification rules,” Mr Chester said.
“The new Education Minister Simon Crean should take a fresh look at the system with the focus on fairness and equity for regional students. Julia Gillard refused to listen to regional students, parents and teachers – perhaps Mr Crean can clean up the mess.”
Mr Chester said he has written to the new Education Minister, urging him to overhaul the Youth Allowance system to better reflect the financial barriers regional students face when pursuing tertiary education.
Mr Chester said it was well documented that it cost a regional family at least $15,000 a year to support a child living away from home to study and the Federal Government needed to provide more support to cover the additional costs.
“In her previous role, the Prime Minister failed to fix the fundamental inequity for students from regional areas who leave home to attend university and she has created a system where some students face a more difficult pathway to university than others in the same classroom,” Mr Chester said.
“I have written to the new Education Minister to reaffirm my position that the system needs to be overhauled to better reflect the financial barriers regional students face when pursuing tertiary education.”