RURAL Queensland families who must now send their children away for education will now be eligible to receive a remote area tuition allowance increase of 10.2 per cent.
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the funding increase proved the current government's commitment to supporting rural and remote Queenslanders, as he made the announcement in Longreach on Monday morning, alongside Lachlan Millar, LNP candidate for Gregory.
"We want to make sure that no matter where they are we have young Queenslanders that know they can get great opportunities no matter where they've gone and where they go to do schooling," Mr Langbroek said.
The new Living Away From Home Allowance Scheme (LAFHAS) includes a one-off 7 per cent increase on top of the anticipated 3.2pc Consumer Price Index increase to the tuition allowance.
Last year 1340 students received the allowance. With the introduction of year 7 into secondary when school goes back on Tuesday, it is anticipated that number will increase.
Those benefiting under the scheme will see maximum allowances increase between $198 and $645 across the board for 2015.
Students with disabilities will see the maximum allowance increasing to $6959.
Primary school students will be eligible for a maximum allowance of $3401 per child, secondary students $4898, while agricultural college students can see up to $2138 under the 2015 allowances.
Mr Langbroek said the announcement was not an election promise, with the immediate funding coming as the result of recommendations from an education review in rural and remote areas completed late last year.
The announcement comes after hard campaigning by the Isolated Children Parents Association (ICPA) for better support, said president Andrew Pegler. "This will not completely close the gap, no one is pretending it is, but it's certainly recognition that there is a problem," Mr Pegler said.
"The average cost of a boarding school education for those that need to board to access their education has increased in over a number of years about 5pc more than what the allowance has increased in."
Access to the state-funded education system for all Queenslanders irrespective of location was the next challenge, Mr Pegler said.
"The cost of access to education when you don't have an education down the street is one of the biggest killers to our bush communities," he said. At the official launch of the LNP's election campaign on Sunday, Premier Campbell Newman promised to build at least 22 new schools in Queensland.
When questioned by Queensland Country Life for prospective locations of these schools at the funding announcement in Longreach, Mr Langbroek made no promises.
"We set up a Schools Planning Commission in 2012. We haven't yet identified where the schools are going to be. That's the job of the Schools Planning Commission."
Mr Langbroek also put the zero schools constructed last year down to the previous Labor government's nil preparation "because it takes a while to plan for them and Labor had given up on planning for schools".
Since the premier called the snap-election two weeks ago Labor has promised no new schools, instead pushing new teaching jobs to win voters' affections.
Prior to her campaign launch, opposition leader Annastacia Palaszczuk pledged to appoint 875 teachers over three years, bringing the already planned 1600 new teachers to a total about 2500. She said 275 extra teachers would be high school specialists on subjects including agriculture.