THE $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution scheme, one of the signature policies of the Rudd and Gillard years, has been condemned as an international case study of legislative and ­bureaucratic failure.

A paper by three Australian academics published in the International Journal of Public Administrationsays the Labor-era stimulus program of building multi-purpose school halls, science labs and libraries highlights the pitfalls governments need to avoid when rolling out large-scale public expenditure programs.............

Anyone for a Cola?
Yes sprint what a waste of taxpayers money.
Lots of examples of wastage and putting plaques up saying Labor all over the place,

Grendel wrote on Apr 1^st, 2014 at 9:42pm:


Yet Coalition MP's where there at openings collecting the accolades.....go figure!!!



http://archive.premier.vic.gov.au/newsroom/10053.html

The Coalition where all over the shop on the BER!!!

http://www.smh.com.au/national/pyne-fails-to-show-so-bill-for-ber-probe-falls-20...

The big lie!!!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/hetherington-the-coalitions-big-lie/509854...

The failed education revolution
KEVIN DONNELLY

‘Australia’s education revolution’ is one phrase that Peter Garrett, the Commonwealth Minister for School Education rarely, if ever, uses in his speeches and media releases.

How times have changed. Kevin Rudd, when prime minister, said he’d be happy for the public to judge the success or otherwise of his government on whether it delivered on its education revolution.

Julia Gillard, when minister for education, repeated the mantra and boasted that her education revolution, involving national testing and the MySchool website, computers and trade centres in schools, a national curriculum and Building the Education Revolution infrastructure program, would strengthen schools and raise standards.

Why has the expression disappeared? Simple, in addition to being flawed in concept, such has been the mismanagement and failure to fulfil promises and meet deadlines, the ALP’s education revolution is now an electoral liability.

As stated in a report monitoring how the ALP Government is travelling compared to the Abbott-led Opposition by Essential Research, “In October 2009, it led by 17 points on education, 12 points in January last year, 11 points in October and now, just six points on an issue that Julia Gillard professes is her main political passion”.

When it comes to the education revolution, the wheels have fallen off.  Take the MySchool website that provides details about every school in Australia, including results from national tests and a profile detailing the socioeconomic status (SES) for each school’s community.

Not only do experts like The University of Melbourne’s Dr Margaret Wu argue that the methodology behind the tests is invalid but also, Minister Garrett had to postpone launching the latest version of MySchool late last year because the information detailing whether schools were wealthy or not was misleading.

In March 2010 Julia Gillard, as education minister, launched the draft national curriculum and stated that it would be ready for schools at the start of 2011. Once again, such has been the flawed nature of the process that the December 2010 meeting of education ministers postponed approval until October 2011.

Minister Garrett now admits that all states and territories will not be implementing the curriculum until 2013 and, even then, there are doubts whether the new curriculum will be the same across Australia.  NSW and Victoria, for example, instead of adopting the national curriculum as designed, will give priority to existing state based curriculum.

The 2007 election campaign promise to give every senior student a computer remains unfulfilled, as does the promise to give every secondary school a trades centre (funding is only available to groups of schools).

While the Government is now cutting back programs and raising taxes to pay for the recent tragic floods, it should also be remembered that by some accounts at least $2 billion of the $16 billion BER program represents over charging and waste.

There is an alternative to the ALP’s centrally controlled, bureaucratic and micromanaged education revolution. Research proves that two of the characteristics of stronger performing education systems are autonomous schools and a system where parents are supported when choosing between government and non-government schools.

A real revolution, and one proven to raise standards and strengthen schools, is to place decision making at the local level and to promote school choice by ensuring that all schools, government, Catholic and independent, are properly funded.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is director of the Education Standards Institute.

The program has attracted attention from critics of the government for alleged "rorting" (misappropriation of public funds) and for not delivering value-for-money outcomes. Instances of inflated quotes or new buildings that were not particularly useful to the school were reported. The Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott called for a judicial inquiry into the BER and the Home Insulation Program, described by the opposition Liberal Party as "failed programs" and a "waste of public money".
In April 2010, the government announced the formation of the BER Implementation Taskforce "to ensure projects are providing value for money". Gillard defended the BER saying that it was "already one of the most heavily scrutinised programs in the nation's history" and that the program was the "centerpiece" of an economic stimulus package that helped to "ensure that a generation of Australians weren't consigned to months or years of joblessness".
After the 2010 election BER moved under the portfolio of Senator Chris Evans.
The Taskforce, headed by Brad Orgill, former chairman and chief executive of UBS Australasia, delivered its report to Senator Evans on 15 December 2010. The report found that most of BER projects had been successfully delivered, with only 3% of the schools involved in the program making complaints. Projects in NSW received the most complaints. The third and final report by Brad Orgill found that BER projects in NSW, QLD and VIC overpaid for buildings by more than 25% on average compared to Catholic schools and more than 55% compared to Independent schools. The ANAO investigation into the project ruled that comparison with those projects were not valid as the standards applied to government school facilities were higher.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz commented in August 2010 that the government's stimulus package, including the BER, was well-designed by world standards and that some waste was inevitable.
On 25 March 2014 three Australian academics published a paper in the International Journal of Public Administration that argued that the BER program represents a "'case study' of how governments should not pursue large-scale public expenditure programs". The paper says that the BER illustrates the pitfalls of large-scale public expenditure programs, and that it did not provide value for money.

Kat wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 6:27am:


I couldn't think of a better word to sum up most, if not all, recent Labor policies...