Press Releases

The Human Cost of TAFE Privatisation

Press Release 639

More than sixty years ago, in the 1960s, religious interests began a politically organised effort to privatise public education. Well-meaning Australians were snookered by talk of ‘Needs’ policies and ‘declining’ standards. In the 1980s corporate interests joined the privatisation push and started to undermine the technical education system. Religious and private interests have waited, like jackals, on the sidelines, hoping to pick up a few of the pieces. This they have done to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.

How have we come to the pass where our young people are burdened with tens of thousands of dollars debt and nothing to show for it?

Privatisation of Education has Proved Expensive, Corrupting Failure.

Press Release 636

The privatisation of the TAFE sector has proved an abject failure for corporatisation of education. Private, profiteering providers can fail; lose of lot of public money; go bankrupt; and leave students in the lurch. Public education institutions, which are about education, not profit for investors, do not go bankrupt.

Accountability for wasted public money? Forget it. But - Investors go to law.

Turnbull Abandons Gonski 'Needs' Policy

Press Release 634

For the DOGS, the abandonment of a Gonski voucher system masquerading as a ‘Needs’ policy by the Turnbull/Birmingham government is no surprise. With memories of the 1973 Schools Commission fiasco, DOGS have a sense of déjà vu.
The private sectarian sector have never given up their own privileges for the less advantaged. Their objectives are and always have been : Power, wealth, and children of the wealthy – in that order. Meanwhile, religious educators and their wealthy clients only pay minimal tax.
The only way to contain their greed is to give State Aid to State schools only.

Political Appointments Make for Lousy Administration Public Education Needs Committed and Experienced Public Servants.

Press Release 632

In the last 150 years Public Education has survived because its Founding Fathers in the nineteenth century identified and solved at least two of its major problems.

Problem One was financial security.
Problem Two was the administrative problem.
The only way forward is to go back and solve these problems again: withdraw State Aid to private religious schools and re-establish a committed and experienced centralised administration.

Ravenswood Captain, Sarah Haynes on Elite schools where ‘more value is placed on those who provide good publicity or financial benefits’

Press Release 631

The captain of an elite school in Sydney’s upper North shore, Sarah Haynes went off script to tell it as it is in the elite school’s bubble of ‘business-like’ operations, with an image that could be ‘unhealthy’.

The question for taxpayers is: should their millions be going to an elite school which charges parents $28,000 for an ‘unrealistic’ education in which images mean more than realities?

Parents may be stupid to spend unwisely. But should taxpayers be constantly asked to send good money after bad? When good money should be ut into good public schools, not bad elitist ones?