Earlier this month, the NSW Labor Government reached an agreement with the Commonwealth to fully and fairly fund New South Wales public schools.

Over the next 10 years, this means an estimated $4.8 billion in additional funding to our public schools.

That is the biggest ever new investment in the history New South Wales public schools.

It's important news, because every Australian child should be able to access quality, free public education in this state.

Unfortunately, when Labor came to office in New South Wales, our education system was struggling to keep up, with essential classroom teachers leaving the profession in droves.

Underfunding by the former Government led to 10,000 merged and cancelled classes daily and over 3000 teacher vacancies.

It is no surprise that as a result, the education of our public school kids was suffering, with less one on one attention for our kids.

We made it our mission to turn this around, and the good news is, it's working.

We know that when it comes to our children's education, nothing can ever substitute for a dedicated teacher in the classroom.

Since, coming to office, we've increased teacher salaries, so we can both attract and retain them to ensure your child sees the same teacher every day.

We have also given more than 16,000 temporary teachers and support staff permanent roles to encourage long term retention and career planning.

There are now more than 2000 extra teachers in our classroom than when we took office in March 2023.

As a result, we've seen a 40 per cent reduction in teacher vacancies and the number of cancelled and merged classes has halved since we came to government.

These investments are essential to lift education standards across the state by ensuring there is a qualified, dedicated teacher at the front of the classroom, so every child can get a world-class education and the best possible start in life.