John Gauci
Rather than allocate urgently needed funding to the TAFE and public school system, the federal Coalition government plans to establish eight private vocational colleges in NSW, at a cost of $289 million.
According to a federal discussion paper released on January 13, when the $289 million tender process was opened, the private colleges could operate as specialist senior high schools. Alternatively, they may be based on existing schools or training institutions such as TAFEs, universities or within an industry.
In an attempt to undermine teachers' wages and conditions, teaching staff will be placed on performance-based pay. Consequently, teachers performing the same work will receive different rates of pay — just a step away from introducing individual contracts. To ensure teachers meet the "desired targets" of big business, industry leaders will chair the schools' governing bodies.
Private education providers stand to make enormous profits from Howard's scheme through student fees, government subsidies and reduction of teacher's wages and conditions. Tim Smith, the national executive officer of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, told the January 14 Sydney Morning Herald that "the scheme could create an enormous role for private providers". He claimed that the "key difference" with the TAFE system and public schools would be "the autonomy given to principals" at the private colleges and engaging "teaching staff on a performance-based pay basis".
The NSW Teachers Federation opposes performance-based pay and is urging its members to contact their MPs and demand the funding be allocated to TAFE and public schools.
ALP federal education spokesperson Jenny Macklin has not yet revealed whether Labor supports performance-based pay.
The Coalition will divert thousands more students from the public education system by creating a further 20,000 positions in the new private system. The private colleges will be based in western Sydney, Gosford, the Hunter Valley, the Illawarra, Queanbeyan, Port Macquarie, Dubbo and the Lismore-Ballina region. Each college will take up to 3000 students from the existing TAFE and public school system. The first colleges are expected to open in 2006, and all 24 will admit students by 2008.
The Howard government claimed in its announcement of the new Australian Technical Colleges that they will revolutionise vocational education by promoting "pride and excellence". This implies that the existing TAFE system does not already provide pride and excellence.
Like in the "values" debate around public schools, the Coalition aims to justify its incredible wastage in establishing a new private system by criticising the public system. Yet these criticisms don't reflect reality. The North Coast Institute of TAFE outperformed its private competitors in November 2004 when it was named "Large Training Provider of the Year" by the Australian National Training Authority. This is considered the blue-ribbon award in the sector.
If the attacks on public education are to be defeated, what is urgently needed is a campaign that goes far beyond petitions and lobbying MPs. We need a broad, democratically run political and industrial campaign that unites and actively involves all students, parents, teachers, lecturers and public-sector workers, demanding an end to the public funding of the private sector and the redirection of these funds into our public system.
[John Gauci is a NSW teacher and a member of the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
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