Page 1832 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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in ACT families enrolled in schools that operate on over $5,000 per capita less funding. And even if you take into consideration parent contributions, the gap is still about 20 per cent less than government schools. Year on year, it adds up to considerably fewer resources available to students attending non-government schools.
If one looks at NAPLAN results, ACT Catholic schools are also performing well and performing well in a jurisdiction that is generally regarded as having among the best NAPLAN results in all year levels. So it is understandable that the Catholic Education Office repeatedly put budget submissions highlighting the inequities in the current funding model. Each year, they have been ignored. Having done so, then they got on with the job of making a significant contribution to the educational outcomes of ACT students.
I wonder then what their reaction might have been to the minister for education’s comments in the Canberra Times recently when the February ACT school census results were published. As members may know, the ACT is unique in the percentage of students who attend non-government schools. Last year, non-government schools accounted for 51 per cent of all high school students attending ACT schools. In doing so, the ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australian history to record a majority of high school students attending non-government schools, suggesting parents were having a crisis of confidence in the public school system.
The headline in the Canberra Times, reporting on this year’s results, was “Government schools claw back enrolments”. The article was based around the theme that ACT government schools had addressed the drift to the non-government sector, with the February census results showing there had been an increase of 1,064 government school enrolments, compared to 328 non-government school enrolments. The article went on to say, incorrectly, that 51.8 per cent of students were now enrolled in government high schools, compared with 49.6 per cent last year. I might add it also noted, correctly, that the non-government sector increase of 1.2 per cent was all in Catholic systemic schools. Minister Bourke, in commenting on the results, said, “The results are a win for government schools,” and heaped praised on former education minister Barr for “recognising the need to bolster community confidence in the government school sector”.
He is wrong, on several counts. For a start, if I were a member of the Catholic Education Office or the Association of Independent Schools or a parent of a child at an ACT non-government school and I heard that comment from the ACT education minister, I would be worried and probably highly offended. As shadow minister for education, I am proud to support all schools in the ACT, both government and non-government. I would have thought, for a start, that the ACT education minister was also supposed to represent all schools in the ACT.
Education is not a sporting competition and there should not be winners and losers. Yet the minister clearly stated, “The results are a win for government schools.” Exactly what did he mean by that comment? And had the results been different, would he have been moved to claim it as a win for non-government schools? No, I do not think he would have, because, in his thinking, he does not consider himself the education minister for non-government schools. And neither did his predecessor, who
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