BY SUE BULL
Federal education minister David Kemp unveiled his new funding scheme for private schools on September 28, a scheme which will give millions of extra dollars to elite education even as public education suffers.
Labor opposition spokespeople claim that the scheme will give the 62 wealthiest schools a $50 million boost in funding each year. Kemp said the average increase was only $184,791 per year for the 67 wealthiest schools.
It has since been revealed Carey Grammar, an elite school, will receive an extra $1.5million.
The day after Kemp's announcement, the principals of some of the most privileged grammar schools in Victoria wrote the Australian, stating "the funding boost would help redress past funding inequities".
But one brave student from Victoria's elite Wesley College wrote to the Age on October 4 to ask what her school would do with all its extra cash. "Wesley is already privileged beyond belief", she said, describing how the school doesn't distribute yearbooks, it distributes CD-ROMs.
Meanwhile, over 70% of school students are enrolled in Australia's more than 7,000 government schools.
However, while there has been a parliamentary spat over the sums involved, there has been little public debate about the rationale of giving massive public subsidies to private schools in the first place.
In spite of Labor's protestations at Kemp's most recent proposals, for more than 50 years both major parties have been prepared to massively increase state aid to private schools, in an effort to catch upper-middle class votes.
Robert Menzies' Coalition government began in 1951, by granting financial assistance to denominational colleges at universities and then tax deductions for private school fees or donations to school building funds.
In the 1960s the commonwealth began to fund science blocks and school libraries for both public and private schools. Eventually, by the 1970s, both private and public sectors received recurrent funding and capital grants.
Gough Whitlam's Labor government was elected in 1972 with a commitment to "needs-based" funding for all schools. The 1973 Karmel report argued that all students should be educated to the fullest extent but sidestepped the fundamental inequities of state aid.
Not only did Labor retain state aid but private school growth was neither limited nor made financially accountable. Consequently, when the Coalition was re-elected under Malcolm Fraser in 1975, 49.2% of the education budget was spent on private schools, which represented 24.1% of students. The numbers of private schools also significantly increased.
Between 1975-1990 total government spending on education declined from 6.2% to 5.3% of gross domestic product. The average student/teacher ratios in government schools rose from 14.7:1 in 1987 to 15.4:1 in 1995. The proportion of primary school classes with over 25 students rose from 60% to 72%, while in junior secondary classes it went from 40% to 47%. Teacher numbers fell by 3.5%.
Between 1982-1994 commonwealth funding of private schools increased by 49.2%, compared to a government schools increase of 13.1%.
Some of the most glaring examples of inequity were perpetrated by Jeff Kennett's Coalition government in Victoria between 1992-99. Spending on government schools was cut by $300 million, 8,200 teaching positions were eliminated and 568 positions allocated for socio-economic disadvantage were abolished. Meanwhile the funding of private schools was increased by $33 million, 15% in real terms.
Steve Bracks' new Victorian Labor government is looking at some levels of restoration of funding and teacher numbers but pre-Kennett workload levels are not being restored. The proposed agreement between the government and the Australian Education Union in Victoria, while delivering a pay rise, only delivers 300 new teacher positions.
Education policy, especially since John Howard's election as prime minister in 1996, increasingly reflects the struggle for individual advantage rather than the need to rebuild an education system based on the common good. The buzzword has become "freedom of choice", translated as "private schooling at public expense".
Consequently Howard maintains that this latest scheme to fund private schools will give "more choice not to wealthy families but to battling working class families".
The need to redress disadvantage, through properly funding the rebuilding of quality public education system, does not even enter calculations.
After all, the majority of decision-makers — politicians, academics, businessmen and bureaucrats — perpetuate their privilege by educating their children outside the public system and have nothing invested in it.