Shorten's response to the budget

Bill Shorten delivered his reply to the budget ( the one that hardly mentioned education ) and promised to support teaching 'coding' in schools ( as they do in the UK) 'Every young Australian needs to understand the language of computers'

He acknowledged 'great teachers' and mentioned his own mother - He said 'education opens doors'.

he promised to boost skills of teachers and  train new science maths teachers and to 'right off their HECS' and encourage more women in these fields.He also criticised the government's savage cuts to education.

From tonight's ABC Online

In his speech to Parliament tonight, Mr Shorten said a Labor government would introduce digital coding to the school curriculum and spend $25 million in training teachers in programming.

And to encourage more people to take on science, technology, engineering and maths degrees, Labor would forgo the student debt for 20,000 award degrees a year for five years.

It would also provide 25,000 teaching scholarships - worth $15,000 each - over five years to science graduates.

"Coding is the literacy of the 21st century and under Labor every young Australian will have a chance to read, write and work with the global language of the digital age," Mr Shorten said.

"A career in science does not just mean a lifetime in a lab coat, it means opening doors in every facet of our commercial life."