Empowering Local Schools initiative

The Australian Government has committed $475.5 million over seven years to rollout the Empowering Local Schools initiative in two phases. The aim of the initiative is to empower participating schools to make decisions at a local level, supporting them to better respond to the needs of students and the school community and provide services designed to assist their students to achieve their best educational outcomes.

Up to 1000 government, Catholic and independent schools across the country will benefit from participating in Phase One of the Empowering Local Schools initiative over 2012 and 2013. At least one third of these schools will be located in regional areas.

Phase One

Phase One will focus on increased decision making in participating schools in three areas considered important in enabling schools to make decisions about how best to improve teaching and learning:

• governance (e.g. strategic planning, school operation decision making structures that includes parents, carers and the community)
• funding and infrastructure (e.g. allocation of resources, infrastructure management, planning and maintenance)
• workforce (e.g. varying the mix of staff, recruitment, performance management).

Both government and non-government education authorities will be given considerable flexibility to tailor implementation to suit their jurisdiction and their schools, including determining the exact nature and scope of actions to be undertaken by schools.

Phase Two

Phase Two will be informed by an independent evaluation of Phase One and is expected to commence from 2015.

Implementation

Phase One of the Empowering Local Schools initiative will be implemented during 2012 and 2013 through a National Partnership Agreement with state and territory governments and funding agreements with each of the state and territory Catholic Education Commissions and Associations of Independent Schools. Each of these agreements will be supported by an Implementation Plan which sets out how the initiative will be implemented in each jurisdiction and sector.

For more information on Empowering Local Schools initiative announcements, visit the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett’s media centre.

Government sector

The National Partnership Agreement on Empowering Local Schools has commenced operation and a copy is available on the Standing council on Federal Financial Relations website.

Frequently Asked Questions and Fact Sheets

The Empowering Local Schools frequently asked questions and facts sheets provide more information about this initiative.

NSW Participating Schools

The list of NSW schools participating in this first phase of the Empowering Local Schools initiative can be found on the Participating Schools page.