AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

PRESS RELEASE 353

WHAT DO PARENTS PAY FOR

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION

RESPECTIVELY?

26 January 2010

The Friendly Society, Australian Scholarships Group, provides some interesting statistics through its Education Fund website.

A parent with a child commencing primary school in 2010 can expect to pay the following amounts in private contributions for a public, private and Catholic systemic education respectively:

Primary School Private Costs

Private ‘voluntary’ costs for public schools	Private costs for Private schools	Private costs for Catholic or other systemic schools
$36,956	$122,266	$52,944

Secondary School Private Costs

Private costs for Public Schools	Private costs for Private schools	Private costs for Catholic or other systemic schools
$36,427	$157,309	$81,964

These figures make a nonsense of the ideal of ‘free’ education in Australia. However, it should be noted that it is only in a public school that private contributions are ‘voluntary’ and the principle of ‘free education’ still exists. It is a pity that all Australian parents do not join together in common ground and demand a genuinely free education for all children regardless of their class, creed, colour or culture.

Another Form of State Aid:

The Australian Scholarships Group ‘sells’ itself to private school parents as follows:

Why join?

Tax Effective - As the fund is designed specifically for education it fulfils the requirements of a 'scholarship plan' under the Income Tax Assessment Act (Tax Act). This allows the fund to receive concessional tax treatment, which in turn optimises your child's education benefits.

DOGS note that the concessional tax treatment for funds placed in the scholarship fund by parents and grandparents from the time of the birth of a child is yet another form of State Aid for wealthy private schools.

Insecure Private School Parents Should Do Their Sums Again

Anthony Keane, the News Editor of the Hobart Mercury (January 25, 2010, p 23) told the following anecdote:

A reader once told me that instead of sending his boys to private school, he invested the savings – about $13,000 a year – into BHP shares. Thanks to the share price growth, his 19-year-old son was a millionaire paying his own way through university, while another son planned to buy a pub and hire private-school educated students as waiters and bar staff.

Insecure middle class parents and grandparents should not be taken in by the private school sales pitch. Australia would be better served if all parents made common cause for the education of all Australian children through the public system, - the only system which is open to all children.

DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION AND STOP STATE AID TO PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS.

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