AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT
SCHOOLS
Press Release 693
PRIVATISATION OF EDUCATION :
ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN FAILURE
When the DOGS were formed in the period 1964-1969 State Aid to private religious schools, most particularly the Catholic sector, was intended to prop up schools that could not or would not pay their way. Australian taxpayers were expected to provide ‘needs’ for an increasing number of ‘needy’ schools, however wealthy they might be in fact. The specious economic arguments of the private sector have long been disproved –a first rate public system would prove cheaper, more socially cohesive and more educationally effective than the current. See http://www.adogs.info/press/taxpayers-pay-private-schools-it-now-makes-economic-sense-make-them-public-schools
In the 1960s DOGS predicted that the bolstering of a private system would prove bad for
- Democratic institutions
2. The legal as well as the parliamentary arms of government
3. Educational standards in the international context and
4. Religion.
They have been proved correct on every point. Their High Court case in 1981 proved points 1,2 and 4.
Trevor Cobbold, in his latest research has proved them correct on point 3. Australia is now rapidly falling behind in the international race. Our children, and most particularly the children of the disadvantaged classes, are being sold out most grievously. See
http://www.saveourschools.com.au/equity-in-education/resource-gaps-between-advantaged-disadvantaged-schools-among-the-largest-in-the-world and http://www.saveourschools.com.au/national-issues/whats-behind-australias-tottering-pisa-results
Since the 1980s the preferential funding of the private sector under the ‘Needs” rhetoric of the Lib-Labs, and the selling off of public school facilities to the private sector, has been exacerbated by the neo-liberal ‘market-laid-up-in heaven’ ideology. Many valuable Public facilities – our children’s inheritance - together with their income stream for governments have been sold off; central bureaucracies set up to provide accountability for expenditure of public moneys have been run down or taken over by private interests; corruption is rife; and politicians in the major parties are becoming the servants of the newly enriched oligarchs, oligarchs themselves; or CEOs of multinational corporations. In some cases, they are members of the oligarchic class themselves.
SO, the highlight of question time in Parliament is Shorten calling Turnbull ‘Mr Harbourside Mansion’ and Turnbull retaliating accusing Shorten of consorting with the Pratt family. Is it any wonder that voters are wondering whether our Parliament itself along with our education, electrical, water and transport services is being ‘contracted out’?
APPENDIX: RESEARCH FROM TREVOR COBBOLD OF SAVE OUR SCHOOLS
What’s Behind Australia’s Tottering PISA Results.pdf
Resource Gaps Between Advantaged & Disadvantaged Schools Among the Largest in the World.pdf
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