Very soon Australians will go to the polls to elect a government for the next three years. On what criteria will they choose one party rather than another?
If published policies on education are anything to go on, the ALP leads the field. Few Christians would be very comfortable with the published positions on education of some of the minor parties, though they might like some of their policies on other matters; the Coalition has yet to publish its education policies, so we have to assume that, by and large, what we have now is what we will be offered for the next few years if the Coalition is returned to the Treasury benches.
Labor vision
Few Opposition leaders have produced as many "visionary' statements on education so far before an election as has Kevin Rudd. Rudd, in fact, for the past nine months has been promising an education revolution for Australia if he is elected Prime Minister. The contents of his various manifestos on the ALP website are generally laudable. Rudd has promised an end to the blame games between the Commonwealth and the States and an end to sectional rivalry in the schools sector. Indeed, he has offered a bigger piece of the fiscal cake for education overall; it remains to be seen how amenable his Cabinet colleagues will be to such a novel idea!
In actual fact, there is not much difference at all between the Coalition and the ALP so far as policy, priorities and directions for education are concerned. Both sides support greater national consistency. John Dawkins' dream of a national curriculum and assessments might soon be realised, not forgetting national teacher registration and payment of teachers on the basis of student performance.
Bottom line
Assessing education, the factors at the end of the day for discerning voters will be: which party, Coalition or ALP, is better able to deliver on their rhetoric; and who is most likely to provide leadership in education at all levels in all sectors. And most importantly, which platform most closely approximates the value which God places on the education of all his human creatures.
Dr Bryan Cowling is Executive Director of the Anglican Education Commission
Issue in focus: schools funding
ALP says:
The Labor leadership has adopted the principle of parental choice from the Coalition. It has repudiated Mark Latham's "private schools hit list' by pledging to boost schools funding overall. Education spokesperson Stephen Smith announced on April 13: "Our overriding principle will be that Labor will not cut funding to any government or non-government school, nor will we disturb current average government school recurrent cost indexation arrangements for schools funding".
Coalition says:
The Prime Minister gave a major speech on education in May, announcing that he will withhold $42 billion dollars worth of education funding unless the States toe his education policy line. This means publicly reporting the level of bullying in schools, giving principals more autonomy when it comes to teaching and making changes to the curriculum.
The Democrats say:
The important contribution of independent schools is recognised; however, governments must direct funding in a manner consistent with their primary responsibility being the funding of public schools.
Family First says:
Family First will aim to give every family member a "fair go' through equality of access to education by supporting funding equity between private and public education. This will ensure no child is disadvantaged because of geographical, social or economic factors, regardless of whether children have been placed into the private or public education system.
The Greens say:
Financial and resource needs of public education must receive the highest priority within the education budget. Australian society is best served in the long term through educating our children in a system which brings them together to learn side by side; high levels of enrolments in the public school system are healthy for our community, and Common-wealth funding policies should reflect this.
compiled by Jeremy Halcrow
