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The upcoming elections make it more and more clear: there is hardly any difference between Labor and the Liberals - both are equally conservative. That is no surprise of course, given that this pattern is almost universal, with most governments in the firm grip of the neo-con philosophy of economic rationalism. There are of course still dreamers amongst voters who believe social-democratic parties have at least partially still social justice agenda items, especially in areas of education, health and social service delivery. Rudd and his shadow education minister Stephen Smith certainly killed that delusion for school funding when promising Cardinal Pell to keep the government’s school funding system if elected to office. In return for the catholic vote, Labor again sold out.

The current grant system funding private schools is widely seen as being socially unfair, even by some of its beneficiaries. Labor’s old system, replaced by the current government in 2001, took into account the fee level schools charged, investment earnings from their endowments and the quality of school facilities. The new Socio-Economic-Status system, in contrast, provides bulk money to individual schools (in the case of catholic schools to the National Catholic Education Commission) based on the relative wealth of the electoral subdivision where the school children’s parents live.

Problem though is that the new SES system promised schools that, at the time of its introduction, none of them would be worse off even if the new formula said they could lose some of their funding. Result: six years on, 60 per cent of all private schools are in the “guaranteed” category, meaning that most of the 2710 non-government schools would lose part of their funding if the formula would be applied properly. And that funding is not small: during the current four year funding term the catholic school system alone will receive $12 billion - 750 million dollars every three months via electronic bank transfer; that amount will rise to probably $15 billion for the term 2009-2012.

But private schools not only receive money they shouldn’t get; they also did not keep their promise to lower their school fees (this commitment was used by the government to justify the new system). Instead school fees have risen in the past decade between 6-10 per cent annually, with some yearly fees in elite schools now reaching $20,000 per annum.

Broken promises and unfair distribution though are no obstacle for the government and now also the Labor opposition to question the current funding regime. And their bias often pays handsomely for private schools, with the elite ones logically being the biggest winners; they receive between $4 million and almost $15 million more per year than they would have under the old Labor system. In other words: the richer the parents, the better the education thanks to higher government subsidies. And while private schools have increased their funding share, public schools had to cope with funding decreases - a trend that now will remain, independent of who wins government in a few weeks.

Some believe Rudd is just playing his cards strategically when agreeing with the current government on practically everything; once he has won the election, so the argument goes, the differences between the parties will be unveiled to the great delight and sighs of relief of Labor’s true believers. Dream on! After having committed himself to keeping the conservatives’ new labor laws for five years before making major changes (if any), he now has pledged to keep the unfair school funding system in place until 2012. No wonder one of the current government ministers recently invited the opposition leader and his shadow cabinet to join the Liberal Party. I’m imagining the excellent entertainment value of such a move, with all those old and new roosters going for the kill. It might also be a good (and free!) educational experience for school kids in private and public schools alike - in regards to the farcical and absurd nature of our system of democracy.

[above mentioned facts: Sydney Morning Herald, October 13/14, 2007]

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 11:26 pm and is filed under social injustice, unsustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.