Extract from The Guardian
‘This was the prime recommendation of the Gonski review in the first
place – to direct money to those children who need it most.’
Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP
The education minister says he wants a school funding system that
sends money where it’s needed most. Well, yes, that was the whole point
of Gonski
Reports that Gonski was dead might have been premature, but he doesn’t look well. On Tuesday, Fairfax published an interview
with education minister Simon Birmingham in which he said that the
government would not be funding the crucial final two years of the
six-year Gonski program – the two years that would see the full benefit
of funding delivered where it was needed most.
Later in the day, Malcolm Turnbull backed away from the story, saying “this is not a time for a political stoush about this” and that his government was “absolutely committed to ensuring that all Australian kids get a great education, whatever school they go to”.
Turnbull notably did not use the name of his old friend David Gonski, architect of the widely applauded review into education funding that in December 2011 recommended a six-year funding template that would see resources flow to children most in need. Needs-based, sector-blind funding that would ensure that all Australian kids would indeed get a great education, whatever school they go to.
Birmingham, too, later seemed to back off from his own interview. In a statement, he said “nothing has changed in relation to the Turnbull government’s policy on schools funding”.
Earlier, in the interview in which he categorically said the final two years of funding would not happen, he also said: “I want a school funding system that is genuinely needs-based and is targeting the money where it’s most required.”
Well, yes. This was the prime recommendation of the Gonski review in the first place, to direct money to those children who need it most: children from low socio-economic backgrounds, children with disabilities, Indigenous children, children in poor rural areas. The more layers of disadvantage, the more funding to be received.
As Gonski wrote in the report in December 2011, the proposed funding arrangements of the review – the full six years – would be “required to drive improved outcomes for all Australian students, and to ensure that differences in educational outcomes are not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions”.
Everyone is singing from the same song sheet, but nobody can agree on the key.
Labor has not committed to the final two years of Gonski funding either, and the four states and one territory that signed up for it – New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, and ACT – are left hanging about funding post-2017. They deserve to know where, exactly, the Turnbull government stands on the signed deals, but the obfuscation continues.
The recommendations of the Gonski review have been the best chance for needs-based funding this country has seen. The name Gonski – now elevated to the lexicon as a noun – has become synonymous with equity in education.
And equity in Australian education is an issue. Much is made of Australia’s standings in the OECD’s program for international student assessment (Pisa) results, the triennial rankings that tests 15-year-olds in maths, science and reading, and how, by that measure, our educational standards have been dropping over the past 15 years.
Although there is much controversy about whether we should even pay attention to comparing countries by measuring 15-year-olds in vastly different systems, there is another OECD measure that should be more concerning for the government than whether students in Shanghai are better at maths than students in Sydney.
That is the data that shows Australia is one of the below average performers for having a widening gap between the highest performing students and the lowest performing students in relation to socio-economic background. Despite claims made by successive education ministers that Australia has a “high quality, high equity” system, the truth is that the absolute measures of those doing well, and those who aren’t, are dictated by their background.
Simon Birmingham, one of the few LNP cabinet members who is a product of the public school system, says he supports parental choice, but what real choice is there if your local public school is so under-resourced and troubled that you would consider converting to Catholicism, as some parents do, or signing up for six or more years of financial stress to exercise that choice?
Real choice would mean that all Australians feel secure in the knowledge that all public schools are funded to a level that means their children will not be disadvantaged in any way by going to the local high school. That children with learning or physical disabilities will be supported, that those who are lagging would be brought up to speed, that the gaps would be closed.
If we can do this in our education system, we have a better chance to do this in society. Because all the fine talk of being an innovation nation profiting from a glorious ideas boom will come to naught if we can’t get the basics right – all children, regardless of postcode, having access to an excellent education.
Later in the day, Malcolm Turnbull backed away from the story, saying “this is not a time for a political stoush about this” and that his government was “absolutely committed to ensuring that all Australian kids get a great education, whatever school they go to”.
Turnbull notably did not use the name of his old friend David Gonski, architect of the widely applauded review into education funding that in December 2011 recommended a six-year funding template that would see resources flow to children most in need. Needs-based, sector-blind funding that would ensure that all Australian kids would indeed get a great education, whatever school they go to.
Birmingham, too, later seemed to back off from his own interview. In a statement, he said “nothing has changed in relation to the Turnbull government’s policy on schools funding”.
Earlier, in the interview in which he categorically said the final two years of funding would not happen, he also said: “I want a school funding system that is genuinely needs-based and is targeting the money where it’s most required.”
Well, yes. This was the prime recommendation of the Gonski review in the first place, to direct money to those children who need it most: children from low socio-economic backgrounds, children with disabilities, Indigenous children, children in poor rural areas. The more layers of disadvantage, the more funding to be received.
As Gonski wrote in the report in December 2011, the proposed funding arrangements of the review – the full six years – would be “required to drive improved outcomes for all Australian students, and to ensure that differences in educational outcomes are not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions”.
Everyone is singing from the same song sheet, but nobody can agree on the key.
Labor has not committed to the final two years of Gonski funding either, and the four states and one territory that signed up for it – New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, and ACT – are left hanging about funding post-2017. They deserve to know where, exactly, the Turnbull government stands on the signed deals, but the obfuscation continues.
The recommendations of the Gonski review have been the best chance for needs-based funding this country has seen. The name Gonski – now elevated to the lexicon as a noun – has become synonymous with equity in education.
And equity in Australian education is an issue. Much is made of Australia’s standings in the OECD’s program for international student assessment (Pisa) results, the triennial rankings that tests 15-year-olds in maths, science and reading, and how, by that measure, our educational standards have been dropping over the past 15 years.
Although there is much controversy about whether we should even pay attention to comparing countries by measuring 15-year-olds in vastly different systems, there is another OECD measure that should be more concerning for the government than whether students in Shanghai are better at maths than students in Sydney.
That is the data that shows Australia is one of the below average performers for having a widening gap between the highest performing students and the lowest performing students in relation to socio-economic background. Despite claims made by successive education ministers that Australia has a “high quality, high equity” system, the truth is that the absolute measures of those doing well, and those who aren’t, are dictated by their background.
Simon Birmingham, one of the few LNP cabinet members who is a product of the public school system, says he supports parental choice, but what real choice is there if your local public school is so under-resourced and troubled that you would consider converting to Catholicism, as some parents do, or signing up for six or more years of financial stress to exercise that choice?
Real choice would mean that all Australians feel secure in the knowledge that all public schools are funded to a level that means their children will not be disadvantaged in any way by going to the local high school. That children with learning or physical disabilities will be supported, that those who are lagging would be brought up to speed, that the gaps would be closed.
If we can do this in our education system, we have a better chance to do this in society. Because all the fine talk of being an innovation nation profiting from a glorious ideas boom will come to naught if we can’t get the basics right – all children, regardless of postcode, having access to an excellent education.
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