Page 3649 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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The Australian Teachers Union believes that this recommendation makes good sense, while the Council of P and C Associations says that the general approach of this recommendation is endorsed. This recommendation, I believe, needs further work to firmly establish what the links will be between the funding of students in both government and non-government schools. As this is one of the key recommendations of the Berkeley report, it would need to be closely examined by government before it determines its funding priorities for the future.
Recommendation 5 talks about the total amount of ACT funding for education in non-government schools and how that is determined in terms of per capita amounts from year one through to year five of implementation. The Australian Teachers Union expresses concern about this recommendation, and the Council of P and C Associations is opposed to it and in favour of other options being explored. Council has proposed that Territory funding of private schools with resources exceeding the government school cost benchmark be redirected to under-resourced non-government and government schools. It states that there is no case for the ACT Government to provide private schools with greater resources than available to government schools. I would tend to agree.
From the November 1992 newsletter of the Melbourne Grammar School, a Victorian private school currently receiving Commonwealth and Victorian Government support, it is noted that funds have recently been raised for the erection of an electronic scoreboard on the main oval. Madam Speaker, governments must continue to provide for the basic requirements of our students necessary to provide a high quality of education. It seems to me unfortunate that some students have access to the likes of an electronic scoreboard while others lack basic books and materials with which to pursue their studies.
Recommendation 6 is:
That ACT Government per capita grants to non-government schools be made at two levels - primary (Years K-6) and secondary (Years 7-12).
The Australian Teachers Union expresses some concerns about this recommendation, while the Council of P and C Associations endorses it. Existing funding arrangements for non-government schools would seem to suggest that non-government secondary schools are overfunded and non-government primary schools are underfunded, relative to each other and to their government school counterparts. This explains to some degree the proportions of students attending government and non-government schools at both the primary and secondary levels. A far greater percentage of students attend government primary schools, while the ratio is much more even at the high school level, in years 7 to 10. The trend is reversed again in years 11 and 12, where a far greater percentage of students attend ACT secondary colleges.
Recent research by Dr Don Anderson in 1990 suggests that the balance between public and private education sectors has become unstable, and that if present trends continue government schools will become a safety net to catch the residue of children not catered for by the private sector. Evidence would suggest that this is most definitely the case in the ACT, particularly with respect to students in years 7 to 10 at high school.
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