Defence consumes public funds at education's expense

By

Karen Morton

Surely we cannot afford to maintain high levels of defence spending and achieve the PM's education goals.

Australia is spending approximately $18 billion on defence this financial year. For a nation that is under no external threat, this is excessive. Further, it robs resources from other budget items such as education. There are approximately three million students in Australia, almost 250,000 teachers and about 50,000 educational institutions. Given the significance of education for our community, education should by right receive a greater portion of public funding.

Recent Federal Budgets

The Defence Department Key Questions for Defence in the 21st Century - A Defence Policy Discussion Paper states that "In the 2008-09 Budget, Defence's departmental appropriations will be $21,757.8m. The addition of the drawdown of appropriations carried forward, net capital receipts and own source revenue, provides total departmental funding in 2008-09 of $22,690.3m. This represents 1.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)."

Addressing the Independent Schools Council of Australia Parliamentary Forum on September 1, Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said: "In our first budget we have allocated $19.3 billion to education initiatives."

In 2008, spending on defence will once again outstrip spending on education. Surely we cannot afford to maintain this level of defence spending and achieve the Prime Minister's goal.

Consider this in the light of the NSW Auditor-General's identification of a $116 million backlog of maintenance problems in schools and TAFE colleges and Professor Vinson's call for an injection of $180 million over two years to address deficiencies in maintenance in NSW public schools.

In Professor Tony Vinson's Inquiry into the Provision of Public Education in NSW (2002), Professor Vinson reported: "Australia is falling behind most of the major developed nations in investing in knowledge. Should Australia's level of investment in sectors contributing to the knowledge economy continue, the economic future of the country appears bleak."

The report to the Chifley Research Centre, The Comparative Performance of Australia as a Knowledge Nation, analyses Australia's performance and potential as a global knowledge economy. It states that "Australia has fallen behind most of the OECD in investment in knowledge". It further states: "Knowledge economy indicators developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that while most developed countries have been moving forward, Australia's knowledge capacity has actually been declining, especially since 1995."

Australia's Public Expenditure on educational institutions for all levels of education as a percentage of GDP

Economist Adam Rorris's report, Rebuilding Public Schools 2020 - Investment Targets (June 2008), commissioned by the Australian Education Union, provides a cost analysis of the capital investment required to meet the short-falls in Australian public schools. Its findings confirm what anyone familiar with the buildings, resources, facilities and equipment of most public schools already knows: "The overall finding revealed by this study is that children in Australian public education systems are attending schools with per capita investment budgets that are far below those enjoyed by private sector schools."

"During the period 2002-2005, public schools were under-funded to the value of $8.4 billion in terms of capital investment. This is the extra funding public schools needed to match the per student capital investment enjoyed by private schools. If this $8.4 billion were distributed evenly between all public schools in 2005, it would have meant an extra $1.2 million for each and every public school in Australia."

Australian public education students deserve learning environments conducive to effective teaching and learning in the 21st century. To achieve this, high quality buildings, learning spaces, technology, equipment, and music, art and sport facilities must be provided, together with continuous maintenance to keep them to a high standard.

The OECD report, Improving School Leadership, looks at the quality of education in 19 of the 30 countries in the OECD. It states that the best way to achieve academic results is to invest in teachers and in school leadership and that the challenge for governments struggling to raise school performance is to make school teaching an attractive profession by ensuring appropriate wages and career prospects.

Dr McMorrow has indicated, in his National Report on Schooling, that for government schools, Commonwealth funds are projected to be cut in real terms by 2011-2012. The share of total Commonwealth schools funding being directed to government schools is projected to continue falling, to a level of 33.8 per cent by 2011-2012; having declined from 43 per cent to 35 per cent under the Howard Government.

For non government schools, Commonwealth funding is projected to increase in real terms and its share of funding to rise correspondingly.

It would take $1.5 billion to restore Commonwealth funding for public schools to 1996 levels.

McMorrow states: "government must introduce measures to dramatically increase funding for public schools so we can address the needs of all students and lift overall student performance."

Total increases for non government schools in real terms have amounted to $3.8 billion over 10 years from 1996, compared with $1.4 billion for government schools, which serve twice as many students.

Dr McMorrow's study found that funding enrolment increases only accounted for 34.9 per cent - or $850 million - of the total $2.4 billion increase in recurrent funding for private schools over a 10-year period from 1996.

Defence of our nation is certainly important to our security. However, defence consumes our public resources at the expense of education which falls behind in federal funding again. Real and enduring security comes with education, jobs, homes, steady food supplies, clean water, health care, democracy and human rights.

Karen Morton Relieving Research Officer.

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September 2008 contents