Dooley
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A local private school here charges $4,400 per year for a non boarder for primary school.
It receives about $3300 per student in funding.
If you were to withdraw this funding, that would mean an increase of fees of 75%. How many people could afford such an increase in fees for their kids primary school education.
The local public school on the other hand receives approximatley $7000 per student in funding.
It doesnt take much for the government to be paying more in the long run if you make the education unaffordable.
Not all private schools are your Melbourne and Geelong Grammars.
There is heaps of them out of the metro areas and are far from "elite". They just tend to have better discipline and the teachers have more pressure applied to them to succeed.
The same pathway that is used by any government in the past to starve the public system of funding - you just harden up, make the DECISION, and let te parents get used to the idea that public schools are as good as the private ones unless you can afford it.
It wasn't so long ago that most of the religios adherents in the private school sector were straight from the nunnery and the friar patch....... they were unpaid, the kids got what the parents felt their kids needed and the private schools were unfunded. I'm not talking about a couple of hundred years ago here either, it only a matter of 20 years ago......
This is nothing short of HOWARD and HAWKES AND KEATINGS frankenstein social experiment into growing a large middle class in Ozun society. They - and most economists - believe that a truely stable society can only exist with a large and affluent middle-class. THE MIDDLE MANAGER, as it were. Unfortunately for us, most of us have no idea what a established middle-class looks or feels like as we have never really had one before. England has one. The monarchy only exists because of it. It has a class based society. India has a class based society. Most of the centuries old civilizations have a class based society - it is the foundation upon which they exist. Religious and elite schools is how they are established. There is more to the old saying of the old boys network than we are willing to admit......
Secularism is the foundation of egalitarianism and fraternity and freedom. Anything else is a grab for power. If we aren't careful our own backyard could end up resembling Beruit with all its centuries old conflicts embedded in our society.
The trouble we have now is that most of the levels of government are controlled by the different factions of all the religious zealots from their headquarters around the world.
sept 11 crreated a schockwave through civilized society that perhaps not even laden could have imagined occurring, the distillation and cementing in peoples minds across the entire world over whether they felt mohhamedism (it's not really a cult of god, it's really a cult of muhhamid) was antangonistic toward their way of life and in a larger context whether or not they felt the need to be protected by a benevolent religious authority eg chistianity, hinduism, bhuddism or ignore the threat and declare religions have had their day because no longer is there a need for humans to live in the dark and fear the unknown or what is happening on the other side of a neighbours fence.
It is interesting to see the developing fracture in our society and as long as we continue to cater for, and actively promote the idea that to be inclusive means to put out the welcoming mat and change our lifestyle to accomodate others beliefs then we are doomed to failure as a society. The dicotomy the exists where immigrants and refugees come here because they like it here, yet when they get here all they want to do is create little enclaves where they can live EXACTLY like they have over in ttheir own little beruit/afghanistan/greece/turkey/italy/ is truly a question that needs to be answered. Once we know the answer to that question we will know how to ally the fears of these people when they get here, prevent them from returning to their hatefull fearful habits and INTEGRATE into OUR society and enjoy our culture. The intitial starting point for my money is to have them declare they hold no alliance or religious belief over or above the needs of the people and state of Oz. That way the ones who would hold their religious beliefs above the welfare of Oz could be held to be treasonous if they did and then deported. IE if a mullah declares or incites hatred amongst his followers then he is deported to his country of origin. If a person carries out any religious law, were a state law exists marriage/divorce/criminal/civil then the person is treasonous and sent back to where they came from - simple
EOR
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