Going Backski

Educating our children properly is a national responsibility, and one that requires effort and resources from all levels of government. There is nothing in our constitution that says only state governments can fund public schools. A federal government that took no responsibility for government schools is one that would turn its back on the majority of Australian students.

This government wants to drag education funding backwards and undo the progress that has been achieved through the Gonski reforms - a funding system where students were funded according to their needs.

After the Abbott Government was elected last year Minister Pyne attempted to tear down the needs-based structure the Gonski Review had put in place, but was forced into an embarrassing backdown after pressure from State Governments and the community.

He boasts of the extra funding he has delivered to schools through signing agreements with Queensland, the NT and WA but fails to mention that these agreements do not require the States to do anything in return for the money, maintain their own funds to schools or even allocate the money to schools!

This year's Budget has confirmed our worst fears that the Abbott Government would not continue with the Gonski funding reforms beyond 2017, stripping out two-thirds of the extra funding agreed to with the States. This will maintain the resource gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged schools to the point where up to 20 per cent of schools will fail to meet minimum resource standards.

Moving away from needs-based funding after 2017, and indexing schools funding to inflation represents a real cut to all schools. It also means that in the future public schools will get the same funding as in 2017, regardless of the make-up of their students. Any increase in the proportion of students with disability, for example, will not be met by the extra funding required to properly educate those students.

David Gonski recently made the cost of this course of action very clear. He said: "there needs to be a commitment to a properly funded needs based system of funding and a failure to do so will be to our detriment."

This government not only seems unconcerned about the gaps in resources and achievement between schools, but wants to pursue policies which will see those gaps widen.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Tony Abbott has made it clear in the past that his position is for the federal government to favour independent schools. In 2012 he said that:

Overall, the 66 per cent of Australian school student who attend public schools get 79 per cent of government funding. The 34 per cent of Australians who attend independent schools get just 21 per cent of government funding. So there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.

I obviously have a different definition of the word "injustice" to Mr Abbott. I do not consider it unjust that wealthy schools, with access to income through fees and other sources, receive less than cash-strapped public schools which do the heavy lifting of educating the majority of students with disability or from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As eloquently put by David Gonski, "I cannot easily forget the differences I saw in the schools I visited. To say that many of the schools I visited in the state system need further assistance and tender loving care is to me an understatement."