The gloves are off

By Maree O’Halloran

I had to laugh when Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop found her Chairman Mao "control of the curriculum" preview speech promulgated by the media in the first week of October. Of course the Federal Government's radical attack on the value of public education, teachers, educational standards and the curriculum is no laughing matter. It's just that the Minister's references were so ridiculous, extreme and foolish.

Her Chairman Mao comments will forever give meaning to the increasing number and tempo of her threats to withdraw federal funding from schools and state governments. Why would any responsible government continually threaten to withdraw funding from public schools and hence public school students? The chronic under funding of public schools should be a source of shame to governments of all persuasions and it cannot be swept away by ignorant attacks on the curriculum, teaching and learning and assessment and reporting.

The latest OECD statistics clearly show that Australian governments are not making the grade when it comes to expenditure on education:

• Australia ranks 18th out of 29 countries on education expenditure as a percentage of GDP
• Australia spends 19.7 percent of public funding on private schools compared with the OECD average of 10.7 percent
• Eighteen other OECD countries have lower average class sizes than Australia (Adelaide Advertiser, September 27).

The richest private schools in Sydney have also increased their fees by up to 53.4 percent in the past four years, despite receiving even more money than they are entitled to under the iniquitous federal funding formula (Sydney Morning Herald, September 12). At the same time these schools are awash with surpluses (Sydney Morning Herald, October 6).

Education is one of the battlefields in the Prime Minister's so-called "culture wars". He made that clear in his address to those celebrating the 50th birthday of Quadrant magazine. No doubt Julie Bishop was enthused by the Prime Minister's triumphalism at that event. It's just that her contribution to the "culture wars" lacked cunning and subtlety.

Nevertheless we cannot ignore the real message from Minister Bishop in her "Chairman Mao" speech. (The reference to Chairman Mao was deleted by the Minister when she actually delivered the speech.) The Federal Coalition Government is determined to move the public education debate away from resourcing, student-teacher ratios, class sizes and support for teachers.

According to Bishop: "The new frontier of educational reform in Australia is about teacher quality and curriculum...Ideologues who have hijacked schools' curriculums are experimenting with the education of our young people from a comfortable position of unaccountability, safe within education bureaucracies" (The Age, October 12).

As always, there is no balance in these comments. The issue of teacher quality is critical but it cannot be divorced from the level of resources available in a school. There has probably been no greater experiment with the education of our young people than the federal and state governments' imposition of their "one size fits all" student reporting requirements.

The curriculum in NSW was developed in consultation with teachers working in NSW schools. It is therefore reassuring to find that the NSW Government and other state governments have been prepared to defend the respective state curriculums. Perhaps they are finally drawing a line in the sand against coercive federalism. In Federation's view, that line should have been drawn some time ago and, in particular, over the issue of student reports.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, promised the Australian people that arrogance would be eschewed by his government. He promised that the Federal Coalition's control of both Houses would be used judiciously. In fact, it's clear that the "gloves are off" when it comes to the Federal Government delivering largesse to the already advantaged at the expense of the many. This is evident in industrial relations, education, social security, the environment and many other areas of Australian life. The spectacle of large media corporations manoeuvring for advantage on the very day the new media ownership laws passed through the federal parliament must be emblematic of the Federal Coalition's ability to deliver to its own constituency. The reaction of various government members to those manoeuvrings either showed that they had been duped or they were being disingenuous.

The Prime Minister, of course, was not duped by anyone when he committed Australia to war in Iraq. Recent polling shows the majority of Australians oppose having Australian soldiers in Iraq.

The Prime Minister's extreme policies are starting to take their toll on individual Australians and on public institutions. Thousands of young people between 14 and 18 years old have signed individual contracts since the new federal industrial relations laws became operable. These contracts are not subject to a "no disadvantage" test. Meanwhile thousands of young Australians are being denied access to quality technical and further education at TAFE because governments have failed to adequately invest in the system. The Prime Minister's $3000 voucher system acknowledges the skills crisis but is misdirected, providing no comprehensive response. The recent Futures Inquiry conducted by Peter Kell for the Australian Education Union demonstrated that the Federal Government, in particular, has grossly under-invested in TAFE.

At ACTU Congress on October 24, ACTU President Sharan Burrow made it clear that the union movement had embarked on a movement for social change. Federation is playing a major role in that campaign in the areas of public education and industrial relations. The future of our society is at stake.

Cornerstones challenges all of us

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