mantra
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Quote:Suppose instead of funding schools directly, the government gave each child a certain amount, which could only be passed onto an approved school, private or public, which the student attends. Government approval would be based on teaching a certain minimum curriculum.
Would that be fair? If not, why not? It would only disadvantage public school children more than they are now. The states also contribute to private schools and this has only increased the social divide. If people want their kids to go to a private or religious school - let them pay for it. This is an old article, but we have recently found out private schools have rorted Federal funding and no audit has been done over the last decade. The balance now is so out of whack that for public schools to even receive all the basics needed to raise educated children, all funding to private schools would have to be redirected to the public system and so it should be. In fact we haven't seen any recent figures on how much funding private education is receiving compared to public education. All education should be equal and of a high standard. Bliss might have provided current figures - but her link is no longer available. The Howard government's States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Bill 2000, set to be passed by the end of the year, delivers a calculated blow to public schools and further encourages the privatisation of education. Multi-million dollar handouts will be extended to Australia's wealthiest private schools, the Bill's major beneficiaries. Religious schools will also receive significant funding increases. Government schools, on the other hand, will continue to face declining budgets.
The federal government's four year $22 billion education budget allocates the bulk of funding—$14 billion—to private schools while public schools, with 70 percent of students, receive $7.6 billion. The 62 most privileged private schools, enrolling just 5.6 percent of students, will be handed an additional $46 million.
Spelled out in terms of school resources, the King's School in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta, with its 15 cricket fields, five basketball courts, a 50-metre swimming pool, indoor rifle range, gym and fees of $11,600 a year, will reap an extra $1.5 million a year under the Howard government's new scheme, bringing its total federal government funding in 2004 to almost $3 million annually.
The Malek Fahd Islamic School, also in Sydney, is built on land bought with a $12 million gift from the King of Saudi Arabia 10 years ago. It scoops $7.5 million more from the federal government under the new formula.
By contrast, the Bill allocates government schools an average increase of $4,000 each annually, although state education authorities dispute even this paltry amount. They claim that, because of price increases, government schools will receive no real extra funding. Moreover, under the 1996 Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment (EBA) formula, many will actually lose. The EBA reduces federal government funding to public schools if their share of student enrolments fails to keep up with that of private schools—even if their actual numbers increase. Under the EBA, public schools lost $11.9 million in 1998, $21.1 million in 1999 and stand to lose an estimated $27 million this year.
The States Grants 2000 Bill accelerates a process pursued by both Liberal and Labor state and federal governments over the past 15 years of encouraging the growth of private schools at the direct expense of public schools. Twenty years ago, 50.8 percent of federal funds went to public schools. By 1996, after 13 years of Labor government, this had declined to 41.5 percent. By 2004, only 35 percent of federal funding will go to public schools. In the last five years alone, federal and state government funding to private schools has increased by 23.5 percent in real terms, while public schools have had their funding cut by 5 percent.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/oct2000/edu-o18.shtml
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