Bronwyn Jennings
Around 100 teachers and school support staff attended the annual state conference of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) on July 8. One of the most contentious issues was public-private partnerships (PPPs)
Bronwyn Jennings
Around 100 teachers and school support staff attended the annual state conference of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) on July 8. One of the most contentious issues was public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education.
The state Labor government has raised PPPs — in which business consortiums build, own and operate public schools — as a possible means of funding both the building and maintenance of new schools and the massive maintenance backlog in existing schools.
PPPs entail greater costs than publicly funded education infrastructure because business profits are added to the cost of the building program. Schools do not control their own facilities and could end up paying significant amounts to use them, disadvantaging schools in working-class areas in particular.
AEU state councillor and Teachers Alliance member Mary Merkenich moved a motion at the conference to suspend standing orders in order to discuss and vote on an AEU policy on PPPs. The motion was not passed.
AEU state president Mary Bluett argued that the matter was not urgent, despite having been quoted on the front page of the previous day's Age newspaper saying, "The need [for school buildings] is so significant and so urgent we believe that we must be prepared to look at an appropriate form of PPPs as part of the solution".
In arguing for a discussion of the issue at the conference, Merkenich said, "A massive capital works program could easily be funded from the state government's huge underlying budget surplus of around $1.5 billion, and from borrowing that would be far cheaper to government than to business consortiums".
More than half of the conference agenda was devoted to hearing from Liberal, National, Labor, Green and Democrat politicians, due to Victoria's state election in November. Education minister Lynne Kosky addressed the conference and was challenged by many delegates over teachers' ever-increasing workload. Kosky has rejected an AEU request that each school be given two extra student-free days to conduct professional development.
[To contact the Teachers Alliance, email <teachersalliance@hotmail.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2006.
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