The short and long term aim of Julia Gillard, the Federal Minister for Education,* in relation to public education is clearly illustrated in two of her documents published in April 2008; Equity in the Education Revolution April 4, 2008 and

Australia 2020 Summit: Education, Skills and the Productivity Agenda, April 2008. The short term plan is avoid any discussion of public education as such if at all possible. The long term plan is the eventual destruction of both the concept and reality of our public education systems.

No Mention of Public Education:

DOGS obtained a seven page print out from the web site of Julia Gillard entitled:  Equity in the Education Revolution.

Following Kevin Rudd's policy of avoidance of any conflict between public and private, Julia Gillard is no doubt on the 2020 Summit bus as he rides over any mention of public education. Nowhere in her document  dealing with How Australia is Failing to Get Enough Children from Disadvantaged Families into Universities does she   refer to "public schools" or "public education". This is very strange given the simple fact that it is in these schools that she will find the overwhelming number of disadvantaged children.

The Destruction of Public Education

The 20/20  Summit document entitled Education, Skills and the Productivity Agenda referred to private and public benefit, public and private expenditure, independent and government schools, government and Catholic and independent schools, but not public and private schooling in schools.

The only time in all this verbiage that Julia Gillard used the concept of public education and public schools was in her discussion of the destruction of public education. out of the blue, on the last page of her nineteen page document she puts forward the long term plan for the destruction of public education. She puts it in the form of questions as follows:

What should the 'public' commitment  to education be?

Can 'public' education only be delivered through 'public' schools?

Chris Bonner in Maralyn Parker's Daily Telegraph on April 9, 2008 picked up the significance of this question and should be congratulated for bringing the implication of her question into the open.

He noted:

 What is interesting in the Summit agenda  is that amongst the 1001 questions w3e could ask about education, the question of whether a school has to be publicly run to provide public education is given prominence. This reflects an unstated agenda of the Rudd government ( and well-placed people in Gillard's office) and will succeed in pushing a long the prospect of an integrated school system in Australia. (As an aside, it certainly shows that the Summit topics and questions are somewhat contrived;.) The advantages and disadvantages of integrated systems are explained in my review and report listed above. To cut a long story short, I raise many questions which I think the advocates for integrated systems will choose to ignore. It will be interesting to see how the debate and proposals unfold.

Take Notice of the End Game

Supporters of Public Education should start to take notice of the end game of the gutless, spineless politicians and their political minders and hangers on.

Gillard has imported into Canberra advisers from Victoria who are no friends of public education and public schools. DOGS have been declaring for decades that the end game is not full State Aid for private schools but the eventual destruction of the concept of public education and the very existence of public schools through the setting up of integrated systems which privatise our public systems. The method employed will be change in the basic concept of public schools and then, Hey presto, the transfer of the concept into private schools.

The enemy will be invited with open arms into the camp.

Julia Gillard, not long in the job is moving our public systems into this end game.

Public School Supporters Must Wake up and Fight Against the End Game

Public School supporters can expect no support from the academics and media who are push pulling the above agenda. They are the obvious enemy.

 However, there are numerous people who present themselves as friends of public education who are in fact promoters of the integrated system. Amongst them have been officials  and ex-officials of the Victorian public teacher organisations and bureaucrats in the Ministry such as Peter Dawkins, Secretary of the Department of Education and Training in Victoria. ( See Press Release 156, www.adogs.info/pr156.htm

There are a sizeable number of other cronies who can be identified as enemies within the public education camp.

DOGS have warned against the integrated public ( really privatised) school system in previous News Releases. (See Press Release 116 at www.adogs.info/pr116.htm ;Press Release 205 at at www.adogs.info/pr205.htm , Press Release 216 at www.adogs.info/pr216.htm and Press Release 244 at www.adogs.info/pr244.htm .)

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