Brendan Nelson shuffles out of education

By Maree O’Halloran

A Federal ministerial reshuffle has seen Dr Brendan Nelson moved from the education portfolio to defence while Julie Bishop, a West Australian, picks up the education portfolio.

No-one who believes in universal, free and secular public education would lament the departure of Dr Nelson. On January 16, the Australian Education Union, representing more than 165,000 educators across Australia, condemned "the Federal Government's criminal neglect of public education and the aggressive pursuit by Dr Nelson of simplistic and dangerous education policies".

While it remains to be seen what policies the new minister will promote, it seems clear that Prime Minister John Howard intends to oversight the Coalition's attack on those institutions such as public education which build the common good as well as individual excellence.

The Prime Minister opened 2004 with an attack on the values taught in public schools. This created a flurry at both federal and state government levels to produce policy documents that made explicit what was being taught in schools. Much like Premier Morris Iemma's "Respect and Responsibility Plan", such documents could be no more than window dressing. Whether the documents existed or not, public school teachers have continued to educate children to the best of their abilities and to ensure that the values underpinning a fair society are taught and made explicit.

While the Premier's plan was a lightweight response to social division, highlighted by the Cronulla riots and their aftermath, the Prime Minister's attacks on public school values appear to have a far more insidious intent of undermining people's confidence in public education.

Since the Prime Minister's statement in 2004, Dr Nelson has been relentless in his attacks against teachers, the standard of the HSC and the performance of students, to cite a few examples. He has coupled this with policies about flagpoles and dangerous reporting conditions while relentlessly funding private schools at an exponential rate.

Echoing his opening volley in 2004, the Prime Minister took the opportunity in his first political statement in 2006 to eschew multiculturalism and cast blame on the history curricula and history teachers for unspecified societal problems.

The Prime Minister said on January 25: "Quite apart from a strong focus on Australian values, I believe the time has also come for root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history in our schools, both in terms of the numbers learning [it] and the way it is taught........And too often, history, along with other subjects in the humanities, has succumbed to a post modern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated."

History teachers and others have opposed the Prime Minister's view, pointing out that to have, in the Prime Minister's own words from the same speech, "informed and active citizens" requires a curriculum and pedagogy that encourages inquiry and critical reflection.

The Prime Minister's comments must be viewed as part of a sequence; one part of his ideological attack. As teachers we must stand against political meddling by the government of the day in education when such meddling will hurt students and public schools.

Maree O'Halloran is the President.

Renewing the public education campaign

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