Page 1700 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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confident that, at the very least, they will retain current funding levels in real dollar terms. The ACT also should not be penalised by the federal government for having higher than national average funding for public schools.
To further complicate the issue, the Chief Minister in question time yesterday, when outlining the principles underpinning the school resource standard, said:
… the base amount in non-government schools would be discounted by parents’ capacity to pay non-government school fees.
I repeat:
… the base amount in non-government schools would be discounted by parents’ capacity to pay non-government school fees.
Is that the essence of Gonski, a descriptor so loved by the former education minister? That sort of language is enough to justifiably set alarm bells going in the minds of the over 40 per cent of parents in the ACT who choose non-government schools. What does that mean for them? And how does a government, with a chief minister who has been on the public record as not supporting non-government schools earlier in her career, now demonstrate fairness and balance and acknowledge that adjustments will need to be made to the non-government sector if the philosophy of Gonski is to be delivered?
What of the other conditions being imposed by this arrangement? There are several attachments to the new funding model. And what implications will they have for the ACT? The new money is linked to a national plan for school improvement and a national education reform agreement. Interestingly, we have a federal government, which does not run one school in Australia, dictating how schools in the states and territories should run.
Under the national plan for school improvement, we must have higher entry standards for teachers, more individual support for students, empowerment of school principals, more information for parents, teacher appraisals, science testing through NAPLAN, and Asian languages taught in every school. “Higher entry standards for teachers”, in principle, sounds good but what does it mean? What impact will changed standards or entry level requirements have on our current teacher training? And when must they be implemented? What does more individual support for students mean? More teachers? Smaller classes? More homework?
Empowerment of school principals should not be an issue for ACT schools. Increased autonomy has been supported by both ACT Labor and Liberals, but one group that opposes autonomy is the ACT Education Union, the same group demanding we sign a blank cheque for Gonski immediately. Does that mean they will abandon their anti-autonomy campaign?
An extension of NAPLAN testing to science assumes that NAPLAN delivers better educational outcomes. I suspect that is debatable. But more importantly, what curriculum do we use for teaching and testing science at the primary school level?
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