Education Funding

An interesting article "School Needs Matter Most" written by Jack Keating, Professorial Fellow in Education at the University of Melbourne, was published in The Age on 28 February.

Jack Keating observes that "Since the Whitlam government released its Karmel report in 1975 and made substantial levels of funding available to non-government schools there has been a steady drift from government to non-government schools...." He continues that the debate about the continuing funding of non-Government schools and their increasing share of the student population "has crippled any capacity for rational policy on these issues at the national and state levels.

Ownership of the schools should not matter as long as students have reasonable access to schools that will deliver a good quality education within a curriculum that meets public expectations." He gives the example of "the Netherlands and Belgium, both of which have strong public systems, have a majority of their schools enrolments in publicly funded church schools."

Keating's observations regarding the Catholic education sector are interesting. He says: "The largest element of the non-government sector, Catholic schools, is relatively stable in its enrolment share, which is distributed fairly evenly across all income groups. The sector looks like, and to a large extent behaves like, a public sector, being mostly publicly funded, delivering the public curriculum and charging mostly low fees, and in some cases no fees.

If they were added to the government school enrolments in Australia, as they are in most other OECD countries, public education market share would grow to 85 per cent."

Jack Keating argues that there is a two-fold education policy challenge. He says:

"First there is a need to jettison old notions about public and private based on the school sectors. A public system is about using public funding to deliver to the public, irrespective of the ownership of the delivery agency." And

"Second there is a need to lessen the incentives for schools to engage in selective behaviours. In a market environment this cannot be achieved through regulation. Schools need to be rewarded for taking on the biggest challenges. This requires recognition of educational need..."

It is refreshing to read an opinion piece on education policy that does not descend into the "them v's us" arguments about the share of education funding but rather attempts to direct the discussion to the provision of resources based on education need, irrespective of the provider of education services.

Jack Keating places a challenge before everyone with a genuine interest in the education in Australia.

Read the article at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/school-needs-matter-most/2007/02/27/1172338619944.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1