Senior teacher views on Labor education investments

Located in the heart of Darwin city, Inge Gardiner has been working at the Department of Education as a Senior Teacher for the last year in Mitchell Street. A 20-minute drive from her previous work place at Casuarina Senior College, Ms Gardiner is always wearing her black framed sunglasses for the tropical Darwin weather.

She works as a member of the Teaching and Learning 10-12 team. She is responsible for Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training (NTCET) support to senior schools. Ms Gardiner said, “I am allocated to and provide curriculum support in the Cross Disciplinary teaching subject areas.”

Ms Gardiner said she believes the Labor government in the Northern Territory will do their best to deliver on their promises. “I do acknowledge having a Liberal Federal Government will still have an impact on how the local government will undertake these tasks,” she said. “The main reason will be funding.”

Australian Labor Party candidate, Luke Gosling, was re-elected in Solomon in the Northern Territory on Saturday. Mr Gosling is planning to invest in schools, TAFE, apprenticeships and universities in the Northern Territory.

Northern Territory universities will receive a $300 million investment to deliver upgrades and an additional $2 million investment for regional and remote students to support them to complete their courses at Charles Darwin University.

Ms Gardiner has a double degree in Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery and a Graduate Diploma in Education. She originally started studying a science degree in the Northern Territory at Northern Territory University, now known as Charles Darwin University.

She transferred to Veterinary Science in Western Australia at Murdock University because of their “expectational equine facilities and veterinary training” at the time. Working as a Veterinarian for six years and after having her first child, she went back to Charles Darwin University to become a senior school science teacher.

Labor will fund and extend the national preschool program for three and four-year-old’s, benefitting around 7,300 children in the Northern Territory. Ms Gardiner has two children, a daughter who is eight years old, and a son who is six. She believes there are two aspects to consider with the preschool funding. Should parents be sending their children to school at three and will the funding help them in their development?

According to the Department of Education and Training Victoria, it is recognised early years in children are the most important for learning. “Yes, the funding is important,” she said. “I do however believe that children should not be at school at three years of age as I feel they are not emotionally, physically and cognitively ready for this level of schooling.”

Having two children of her own of different genders she said, “it has become increasingly obvious for me that there can often be quite considerable differences in development between genders at the same age and that my son was less cognitively ready for school at the same age.”

Northern Territory public schools will have an extra $41 million in the first three years from 2020. These public schools could be in the city or rural areas.

Ms Gardiner has noticed the government tries incredibly hard to ensure the money allocated to specific tasks, schools, or areas in the Northern Territory based on needs. “Often the public only sees ‘schools’ as being those in the urban centres, without fully understanding that roughly two-thirds of our population in remote areas of the Northern Territory and other more regional towns,” she said.

Ms Gardiner is unsure where the funding will go, “I do know that there is much rigor, justification and planning that goes into deciding where funding is allocated” she said. Rural schools in the Northern Territory can be seen having a disadvantage to the city schools by having little to no reception, more power outages and not being able to get as many resources compared to city schools.

“Getting resources to many of these remote areas cost money with flights, car travel and barges. Therefore, sometimes the public does not really ‘see’ where the funding is going to because of these additional costs” she said.