Lobbying efforts must be unrelenting

Much work needs to be done if public education is to be a national priority, writes GARY ZADKOVICH.

With the federal election imminent, the major parties have written in response to our lobbying for greater investment in public education.

In his standard letter, Labor's shadow education minister Stephen Smith differentiates his party from the Coalition with an acknowledgement that the Commonwealth has "a primary obligation to adequately and appropriately fund Government schools" and pledges Labor's commitment to do this through funding based on need and fairness.

He then undercuts this by stating that investment will be increased in both public and private school sectors.

When Smith says, "we will fund on the basis of need and fairness; we will not cut funding to any school; and we will not disturb the current Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC) indexation arrangements for schools funding," he panders to the private school lobby and disappoints public school communities.

In this period of economic prosperity and surplus budgets, Labor must match the rhetoric with the money. Playing the vote-grab card with the private school sector may be a sign of these politically conservative times, but it doesn't absolve Labor from its responsibilities. Public schools deserve an honest pledge on how much additional funding they will receive from a Rudd Labor Government to meet clearly identifiable needs.

Members receiving this response from Smith should write back and demand that new, additional funding be allocated for targeted spending on public schools. It is public schools that are so central to building capacity within our local communities and throughout our nation.

Where Labor's response is bereft of any actual spending figures, the Coalition response is replete with them. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop sends out three pages that cloak public schools' declining proportion of federal funding in a fog of dollar amounts and percentages. It's designed to conceal the graphic reality (see graph), where government schools (GS) lose out to the ever-rising recurrent funding for non government schools (NGS).

The 'fact sheet' attached to Bishop's letter attempts to deflect criticism of Coalition policy by adding state government funding to federal funding. She says "67 per cent of students are in State Government schools and receive 75 per cent of total taxpayer funding." (Their figures drop another percentage point from our enrolments.)

Behind this statement lies a view that private and public schools should receive total government funding in direct proportion to their enrolment share. The ultimate goal presumably is to have the 67 per cent in public schools receiving 67 per cent of total government funding, thereby eradicating the fundamental concept that governments fund government services. And of course, that private choice really isn't that after all.

According to projections in this year's Budget papers we learn that funding for private schools will increase by $1.7 billion over the next five years to $7.5 billion, while the Federal Government's contributions for the nation's public schools will rise by $300 million to $3.4 billion in the same period. The 30 per cent increase over the next five years for private schools contrasts with a 10 per cent increase for public schools.

These funding increases far exceed any increase in private school enrolments, and when added to private school fees income, provide a massive resources advantage. If continued, a two-tiered schooling system will be created, whereby the quality of a school's educational facilities, resources, equipment, buildings and maintenance would be determined mostly by family wealth and income, rather than government policy based on the principles of equity, social justice and 'a fair go' for all.

It's a terrible prospect that bodes ill for the future of Australian society.

Bishop uses the state-federal blame game with her statements that "State and Territory Governments own, operate and have primary funding responsibility for State Government education systems [and] the Labor Party and the Unions continue to blatantly misrepresent funding by deliberately ignoring State taxpayer funding for State Government schools."

Federation does not ignore the fact that state governments quite properly accept their responsibility to fund public education by spending nearly 90 per cent of the budget on public schools.

The point of difference is Federation's refusal to accept the Coalition's post-1996 attempt to redefine the role and responsibilities of a federal government.

Bishop hopes no-one will remember that previous Liberal/National federal governments spent the majority of their funding on government schools (see graph).

These Coalition governments neither denied this primary obligation nor misrepresented state and federal responsibilities on this issue for political purposes.

Private schools are getting a massively disproportionate increase in funding because of political party policy, not because of any Constitutional separation of responsibilities between Commonwealth and State.

The effect of this policy is evidenced in the 2007 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services: for every $1051 spent on the average public school student, the Howard Government chooses to provide $4515 for the average student enrolled in a private school. That is 4.3 times as much.

Public schools need another $2.9 billion per annum to reach the National Goals of Schooling. In 2003 an inter-governmental taskforce, the Schools Resource Taskforce (established by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs) estimated that the shortfall was $2.4 billion, which, when indexed, now amounts to $2.9 billion.

The Federal Minister also relies on the hackneyed line about how private schools 'save' governments money; in her words, $9 billion a year. This is like arguing that private motor vehicle users save the government money by not using public transport. By this logic, private motor vehicle users could demand government funding too.

Governments would save money if they properly funded existing public schools, instead of diverting money to wasteful duplication in the private sector.

The rat-cunning of the Coalition is evident in their $1.2 billion Investing in our Schools Program. Bishop says $827 million of this total goes to public schools, making it one area of the Federal Budget where public schools are recognised as the majority sector.

The requirement for P&C groups to submit funding applications, however, is designed to lull parents into welcoming Howard Government grants of up to $150,000 while being distracted from the recurrent funding figures, where only one third of the much greater figure of $33 billion is allocated to public schools. (Note that they couldn't properly manage this tactic, as the $150,000 grants were cut back to $100,000, thereby angering many public school communities anyway.)

In this era of government under-investment in public schools, it's the quality of our teachers that holds the system together. It's teachers' hard work, expertise and dedication, that 'something inside', that inspiring combination of idealism, commitment, care and understanding, that makes public education so crucial to the well-being of our society.

The great contribution of the public school teacher, however, should not be exploited by politicians to deny our students the right to learn in well-maintained buildings and classrooms, with technology, facilities, staffing levels and resources befitting Australia's 21st century status as one of the most advanced nations on earth.

This must always be a public right.

It is why we must be unrelenting in our lobbying efforts to make public education a national priority.

Gary Zadkovich is a Country Organiser.

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Last Modified: 09 Aug 2007