A remedy for a shortage of workers, support for the elderly to stay in their own homes and more resources for residential facilities will feature in a $10 billion-plus overhaul of the aged care sector.

Described by Health Minister Greg Hunt as the “largest package in Australia’s history” for aged care, the Federal Government’s 2021-22 Budget will seek to dramatically improve older Australians’ living standards and quality of life.

According to The Daily Telegraph, more funding for home care packages and an increase to the daily fee paid on a per bed basis to aged care providers — which were both recommended by the Aged Care Royal Commission — are expected to be included in the significant investment over the next four years.

“One of the important things that we have here is a response to the Royal Commission, which is based on ensuring that we have respect and care, and dignity,” Mr Hunt told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Hunt said there were “five pillars” to the government’s aged care strategy, including home care services, sustainability, safety, a quality workforce and governance.

“What we want to do in all of these elements, is to make sure that aged care is accessible and as available as possible for as many as possible.”

Last year’s budget included $1.6 billion for 23,000 new home care packages, with the total number of recipients expected to reach about 195,000 by the end of the financial year.

READ MORE: Winners and losers in Federal Budget 2020.

Labor’s aged care spokesman, Mark Butler, said the recommendations in the Royal Commission report would cost “way more” than $10 billion over the forward estimates.

Open borders and migration:

Federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has also confirmed today that Australia will open its border next year in a budget plan to bring back migrants and speed up the economic recovery.

The federal budget, to be delivered by Mr Frydenberg on Tuesday, will include core assumptions for coronavirus vaccinations and infections to aim for the opening of the international border in 2022, several months after the forecast in last year’s budget.

“The borders will reopen when it’s safe to do so, and when they do, net overseas migration will increase, including skilled workers,” Mr Frydenberg told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“And those skilled workers play a very important role across the economy, but we’re not going to compromise public safety, or indeed the economic recovery, by moving ahead of the medical advice.”

Mr Frydenberg also said he wanted to restore migration to the level seen before the pandemic, which was 239,700 in 2018-19, according to population figures in the federal budget last October.

“We will get back to it over time. Obviously, net overseas migration went negative through this crisis,” the Treasurer told the Australian newspaper.

“You’ll see Treasury’s forecast for the coming years on Tuesday night, but that again is a pandemic effect, not a permanent change.

“I believe in a generous, sustainable immigration program that reflects the best of who we are, which is an open, tolerant, diverse country.”

The Federal Government’s border policy has long been criticised by the Opposition, with Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, saying just last week that the closed borders had highlighted Australia’s reliance on temporary migrant workers and that “we should be investing in training Australians” to fill the skill shortages.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald / The Daily Telegraph.

Australian media outlet, The Sydney Morning Herald, has recently reignited the single-sex versus co-ed school debate with a series of thought provoking articles.

In one article, teacher, Sia Goutzas, says she wanted to send her three girls to a co-ed school because while single-sex education may have made sense when men became workers and women wives, those days are over.

“It’s insane that we are still segregating genders,” Goutzas tells The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

“I don’t know why we can’t send girls to Sydney Grammar, or boys to St Catherine’s. For me it should be a natural part of schooling.”

But in the part of the eastern suburbs where Goutzas lives, there are few co-ed options. Even the public schools are single sex. So, in the end, her daughters went to a Catholic girls’ school.

Yet, according to the SMH, change is coming, even in the eastern suburbs. Champagnat, a Marist brothers school in Maroubra, has announced plans to become co-ed. Cranbrook, a 102-year-old, $39,000-a-year Bellevue Hill institution, is also considering opening its doors to young women.

Whilst it’s difficult to do high-quality research comparing single-sex and co-education as every school, student and teacher is different, studies of academic achievement suggest influences such as teaching quality and a school’s culture have greater impact on students’ results.

Principal of Santa Sabina in Strathfield, Paulina Skerman, told the SMH that she is a firm proponent of a single-sex secondary education for young women.

“What it offers young women is hugely advantageous for life. There’s no limitations, no stereotypes, so girls excel,” Ms Skerman tells the Australian media outlet.

“They can start to take chances in an environment where they don’t need to be judged, they don’t feel like they’re competing, and there’s the whole non-distraction without the boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”

However, Iris Nastasi, principal of co-ed Rosebank College in Five Dock, believes boys and girls should learn about each other, with each other.

“I think schools have a unique opportunity to be very proactive in a very safe environment and educate both boys and girls together,” Nastasi says to the SMH.

“In a co-ed school, they don’t get on with each other all the time; they’re pains to each other for a period of time but by the time they get into years 11 and 12 they have good, solid relationships. They work with each other – it’s very normal.”

For her part, Sia Goutzas’ daughter Elizabeth, who is in year 11 at a girls’ school, still wishes she’d been able to have a co-ed education.

“Males are very different, and it’s good to have both,” she says.

“In [my co-ed] primary school we played games every lunchtime. In high school, you rarely do anything during lunchtime or recess. It would be really good to bounce ideas off them, they think very differently. It just promotes a healthy balance.”

What are your thoughts on the co-ed or single-sex school debate?

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald.