By Justine Kamprad
The federal government is contemplating the introduction of a voucher system for secondary schools, along the lines of the one it has set up for universities.
The proposal is contained in the "Schools Funding: Consultation Report", released on January 12 by the federal Department of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.
If the scheme gets the go-ahead, students will receive the same sum for secondary education, regardless of whether they attend a public or private school. The funding will be attached to each student rather than allocated in blocks to each school.
Ultimately, this will lead to further cut-backs in funding to government schools in favour of private schools. There is also the danger that, even within the public system, funding will drift away from under-resourced to better-resourced (and therefore more popular) schools.
Democratic Socialist spokesperson on youth and education, and candidate for the seat of Molonglo in the ACT, Nick Soudakoff told Green Left Weekly: "This 'discussion', initiated by the federal government should be seen as part of its push to privatise education on all levels. Vouchers are a way of justifying massive funding cuts and further eroding the quality and accessibility of public education."
The Australian Education Union has also "declared war" on the federal government's proposal, stating that "this will be the end of free, universal public education in Australia".
Parents and citizens groups are also outraged by the report's suggestion. P&C president Grant Battersby said the issue was "really about the introduction of a concept of user-pays into the government school system, raising the possibility of compulsory fees and means-testing. It is also about increased funding for private schools, at the expense of government schools."
The P&C group have also called for an additional $5 million to be allocated to the ACT's education budget to help reverse some of the previous funding cuts and to "guarantee education for all students".
Soudakoff said: "These latest proposals extend the user-pays system first introduced by Labor. Howard has launched a full-scale attack on the university system. We have to step up our campaign to stop the attacks, and the best way we can do this is to organise an alliance of high school and university students, teachers and academics, along with the broader community, which aims to defend public education at all levels."