The impact of the Howard years on Public Education

by Correna Haythorpe

Since the Howard Government was elected to office in 1996, it has reduced federal funding for public education from 42% of the total school’s education budget to 35% despite the fact that 70% of students are educated in public schools. If this trend continues, federal funding will be down to 31% by 2010.

In a recent Australia Rising address, John Howard made his views very clear about public education when he responded to a question about school vouchers. He expressed opposition to a wholesale voucher approach to education funding because that “undermined the fundamental value and strength of public education as the safety net and guarantor of a reasonable quality education in this country.” Note the word “reasonable” which sets a low bench mark for Howard Government policies on public education.

There has been a massive shifting of funds from public education to private schooling and this comes with the government rhetoric of “choice”, otherwise known as shifting the cost of education to parents by convincing the populace that public education is failing our students. It reflects the Howard/Bishop view that quality education should be located in the private system, with the public school providing a “safety net” for the poor and the dysfunctional – those whom private schools would not accept.

In the run up to the 2007 federal election, the Howard Government has engaged with the insincerity of pork barrelling. In education, there has been an injection of $489 million of additional public funds into private schools which are located in marginally held electorates. The 2007/8 federal budget delivered a $1.7 billion increase to private schools over the next five years, a total of $7.5 billion. Public schools received a $300 million increase taking their total to $3.4 billion. This same budget also ignored preschools and TAFE.

Further analysis of the funding issue must focus on corporate sponsorship and tied funding. Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, has stated that schools should explore corporate sponsorship because it is beyond the capacity of governments to give them the resources they deserve.

She also argues that “increasing links between business and schools would enhance student learning, their employability and skills”. Under a corporate sponsorship arrangement, the question can be asked about how schools would maintain their independence in curriculum delivery and professional matters. In what capacity would business be involved in the daily management of the school, the students and staff? How long before we see a “MacDonald’s syllabus” in the Vocational Education sector? Corporate sponsorship is just another strategy employed by the federal government in their refusal to face their responsibility and duty to appropriately fund public education.

In recent years, public schools have faced the issue of tied funding used to enforce implementation of Federal government imperatives. Grants for flagpoles in schools came with the proviso that a Liberal or National Party politician must “unveil” the flagpole. The A-E grade directive that all schools must produce a report that had a common grade was tied to the threat to withdraw federal education funding for each state. This federal attempt to undermine the professional judgement of educators to assess their students, placed enormous pressure on teachers to engage in a grading process, which was seen by many to be psychologically damaging to students.

From 2009 the Federal Government(if re-elected) will use tied funding to require state education authorities to introduce “initiatives” such as performance-based pay for teachers, reporting against national benchmarks with school and state comparisons (otherwise known as league tables) and greater principal autonomy in hiring and firing of staff. State ministers are likely to accept this funding blackmail in order to have the $$$$ for education. Effectively, this will be a move away from hard won employee rights and entitlements, wage security and the concept of equal pay for equal work. It also has the potential to create a staffing crisis in socio economically disadvantaged schools as performance pay will be based on meeting benchmarks set by the federal government and not about delivering a curriculum that enables each student to achieve optimal learning outcomes.

Tied funding has been used recently in the TAFE sector to blackmail state governments into offering all employees Australian Workplace Agreements or face the loss of federal funding. Combine this with a serious national skills shortage, chronic under funding of TAFE, the duplication of services via the Australian Technical Colleges (which are yet to produce graduates despite millions of dollars of public funding) and you have more than 300,000 people being turned away from TAFE since 1998.

The inability of the Howard Government to engage in genuine consultation and partnership with Aboriginal communities about the educational well being of Indigenous students is a national disgrace. It is estimated that in the Northern Territory alone, there are as many as 5 000 Indigenous students who miss out on access to basic secondary education and many thousands of Indigenous children who miss out on preschool and early childhood education programs. The Howard government has shown its lack of commitment to the appropriate resourcing and implementation of long – term strategies needed to provide quality schooling and to address the educational disadvantage faced by Aboriginal communities. Instead the federal government has opted for a quick fix based on political opportunism in the face of an election it looks likely to lose.

For migrant and refugee students (non English speaking background) John Howard expects “[new Australians] to master the common language of English” yet his government is responsible for the scandalous under-funding of essential English language programs for NESB migrant and refugee students. For the provision of required English language services, it is estimated that the current federal funding shortfall is $85 million per annum.

The 2007 Benchmarks - Work and Family Policies in Election 2007 state “A high quality early childhood education and care system is a public good and so requires significant public investment”. As previously mentioned, the Howard government continues to ignore the early childhood sector by refusing to accept responsibility for funding and supporting quality early childhood learning. Research shows that by the time children begin the compulsory years of schooling many of the factors contributing to future inequality are evident. Disparities in access to early childhood learning and the corporate takeover of childcare facilities by profit driven companies further exacerbate those inequalities.

In the past 11 years, the Howard government has continually undermined the professional and public face of the teaching workforce. The recent attacks on history teachers - "a fragmented stew of themes and issues.... dominated by Marxist, feminist or green interpretations of history"; and women - "ageing female primary school teachers are contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic" contribute to the undermining of public schools and educators, values, cultural tolerance and understanding.

The Howard Government education policies have damaged public schools, educators, students, families and the community. However, educators and school communities will continue to fight for a vibrant, strong system where all students can be part of a quality, secular and equitably resourced public education.

We owe it to the children of Australia- our future- to ensure that this happens.