Some South Australian families will be thousands of dollars better off this year due to a raft of discounts on everything from school fees to laptops aimed at combating the rising cost of living.
The biggest saving for many families will be through the State Government’s new laptop program. Beginning this year, families on School Card with students in years 7 and 10 attending one of the 226 participating schools will receive free electronic devices to support their child's studies.
The State Government will also provide funding to public primary schools to help cover the costs of supplying laptops for student use.
More than 15,000 devices have now been delivered to schools at a cost of $14 million as part of the rollout of the new policy.
The program will continue over the next three years and will be expanded to all high school students on a School Card by 2026.
It comes as the government has now rolled out access to home internet for almost 5000 families through the Education Department’s home internet program, in partnership with the Commonwealth Government’s NBN program. Students who do not have internet at home are eligible for free access, and families can continue to sign up in 2024.
The state government is also increasing the income threshold for the School Card by $4582 to $70,994 for a family with one child, with further increases of $1268 to the threshold for each extra child in the family.
Families who earn less than the new threshold do not have to pay their child’s school’s prescribed material and services charge – which this year is $287 for primary and $379 for secondary students.
Breakfast programs are also being made available in more schools this year, following a $6.5 million boost from the State Government over four years.
This year new agreements with Kickstart for Kids and Foodbank SA will see a funding injection of $1.12 million ensuring that more students can access free healthy food from breakfast programs, with all of the state’s most disadvantaged schools encouraged to participate.
And South Australian public school families will again be offered a $100 Materials and Services charge discount. This discount is automatically applied to the charge by the schools, meaning parents are not required to apply.
