Making up for the past

By Gary Zadkovich

Federation will be working to ensure federal Labor's programs are implemented in ways that optimise the benefit to public school students.

The defeat of the federal Coalition government meant a lot to public education, but what will federal Labor achieve through its education policies?

Some Labor policies respond positively to specific campaigns, like the $450 million pledge to provide 15 hours of pre-school education to all four years olds for 40 weeks a year, with 260 new child care centres to be built in schools, TAFE colleges, universities and other community sites.

The pledge to spend $2.5 billion over 10 years on Trades Training Centres in all secondary schools recognises the need to address the skills shortage. This will involve grants between $500,000 and $1.5 million for schools to build or upgrade trade workshops, information communication technology (ICT) labs and other facilities.

The scope of federal Labor's 'digital education revolution' is seen in its $1 billion computer rollout over four years to provide all students in years 9 to 12 with new ICT and broadband connections that will supposedly deliver at 100 times the current rate in schools.

Federation will be working to ensure that these programs are implemented in ways that heed the professional views of teachers and optimise the benefit to public school students.

Labor promises more help for parents in disadvantaged communities, additional teachers and new health and early education programs for Indigenous students, reduced HECS fees to encourage maths and science teaching, the education tax rebate, the solar schools plan...the list goes on. (Go to www.alp.org.au for full details.)

Unlike the obscene bias of the Howard years, whereby private schools received two-thirds of federal funding, it is expected that these new programs at the very least will be funded in proportion to public education's enrolment share.

The real crunch in an analysis of federal Labor policy, however, is encapsulated in one of the catch-phrases of the federal election -- 'me-tooism'.

In one of the most disturbing developments of the campaign, Labor abandoned its national policy platform and adopted the Coalition position on schools funding. It turned its back on a needs-based approach that gave "priority for public schools through enhanced Commonwealth programs" and proclaimed that it would continue the Coalition's socio economic status (SES) funding model until the end of 2012.

This means Labor will spend at least $42 billion from 2009-2012, with public schools receiving only one third for a two-thirds enrolment share.

This funding model is so corrupted, discredited and distorted that 60 per cent of private schools receive more funding than the SES formula actually generates. If these private schools are called 'funding maintained', then surely public schools are 'funding drained'.

This adoption of Coalition policy is a crushingly hypocritical hammer-blow to the fairness and equity that Labor espouses in its campaign rhetoric.

Beyond funding, Labor promises to implement policies in the tradition of conservative 'fix-the-schools' commentators and politicians -- 'easy to understand' student reports, annual reports on school performance (league tables), national testing and a national curriculum.

Teachers will get the gist of Labor thinking from this: "Parents are entitled to honest judgements about how well or badly their child is progressing at school...That is why we must be able to make clear judgements about what is a pass and what is a fail...Educators sometimes avoid expressing these judgements because they want to protect children. But what kind of protection is it when we hide the truth from children and parents?"

And what about the sophistication of this? "There is no better or more transparent way to make the case for additional support for those schools which are falling behind than making the performance of all schools public."

Governments already are well informed by their education departments about school performance; what's missing is the additional funding to genuinely support schools in need to improve student outcomes.

While the funding of an additional 450,000 training places is commendable, TAFE funding under Labor falls short of what is needed. The Australian Education Union's national claim is for an increase of $470 million in 2008 alone. Instead, TAFE will have to compete with other providers for the $539 million which is on offer to fund the additional training places over four years.

TAFE funding does not match Labor's policy rhetoric: "As the single largest provider of training in Australia, TAFE remains an important part of Australia's training system."

For the new Federal Government, the challenge will be to deliver on its own words: "Education is the engine room of equity, the engine room of opportunity, and the engine room of the economy." (Kevin Rudd, campaign launch, November 14, 2007)

A worthy place to start is the implementation of the recommendation from the Education Ministers' (MCEETYA) schools taskforce to invest an additional $2.9 billion per annum to raise public schools to the national resources benchmark.

Labor must fund TAFE to the levels required to address the nation's skills shortage and replace the much maligned SES schools funding model with a scheme that is fair, equitable and that genuinely accounts for school needs and existing resources.

This action is essential if Labor is to make up for the damage of the Howard years.

Gary Zadkovich is Senior Vice President.

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February 2008 contents