Iran war: Immediate fuel relief package for schools
Monday, 20 April 2026
The Government is investing $37 million to replace diesel boilers in school, will subsidise fuel for relief teachers, help struggling parents with transportation costs in a push to help schools in the fuel crisis.
Education Minister Erica Stanford announced immediate support will be provided to help small, rural and isolated schools most likely to experience challenges from fuel cost-pressures.
The announcement, made of the first day of term, would see funding aimed at helping schools manage fuel cost pressures and keep classrooms warm so students would concentrate on classroom lessons, she said.
Up to 70 schools would have their diesel boilers replaced to remove dependence on diesel and protect schools from future fuel price shocks.
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Principals had previously raised concerns of children having cold classrooms as schools face cuts to their heating as winter looms. The upgrade is expected to save 600,000 litres of diesel per year.
Relief teachers would receive temporary increase to Relief Teacher Transport Allowance mileage rates to help support staffing to schools, particularly through the winter months in rural and isolated communities.
Car reimbursement rates will rise from 37 cents to 83c per kilometre, and motorbike rates from 15c to 31c.
The increase is effective from Monday and will apply for 12 months or until fuel prices ease to below $3 per litre for four consecutive weeks.
Schools will receive operational grant funding to cover mileage costs, however schools with 100 students would be able to receive one-time cash grants of $2,500 .
This was because they were less likely to be able to afford the increase to the mileage reimbursement rate from their operational grant funding.
The conveyance allowance - funding which helped parents take their children to school - would be increased by 30% to help eligible families with the cost of getting children to school or the nearest bus route.
About 5000 students would benefit from this increase.
Stanford also announced a $2.35 million per year investment to grow the teaching workforce and ensure rural and isolated schools had a good pipeline of teachers.
The Go Rural programme, which sees student teachers receive $4000 to cover the costs of undertaking work placement in rural and isolated schools is being expanded by 87 places per year.
The number of places available in the Teacher Bonding Scheme will be increased by 50, from 185 places to 235 per year.
The bonding scheme supports teachers with up to an additional $40,000 over five years for working in hard to staff schools, the majority of which are rural and isolated.
Stanford confirmed 20 schools would have their boilers replaced by the end of the year, while bigger schools with complex infrastructure would take longer, until 2028 in some cases.
She said there would be no changes, at this stage, to how truancies are recorded if parents could not afford the cost of fuel needed to get their child to school.
She said there had been no changes to attendance patterns so far, noting it was up from the same time last year.
Principals have told The Post it was becoming an issue for schools in the days leading up to the school holidays, with principals taking it upon themselves to drive students to school themselves.
“We will continue to talk to schools every week to see which issues are popping up, and we can respond on a case by case basis, or even further supports if things change.