The Gonski report is welcome because it gets us talking about what schools and students require of us. It’s very poor indeed for Minister McKim to describe the Gonski report as “landmark” and “overdue” when he didn’t even know about it at estimates 2011 – one year after the review had commenced and his Department had made a submission!
It’s very important that we not allow the report to be used by entrentched interests for the issue to be dominated by the politics of envy. In a modern, national education system, we need to support all three school sectors fairly (Government, Catholic and Independent).
I am concerned about the proposal to abandon the SES (socio-economic status) needs based funding. The Federal Government must give a guarantee that no student will be disadvantaged by a new funding model.
I’d like to see progress on some of the key principles in the Gonski report and will continue to digest the document before commenting too much further. But at first blush, I have to say that the proposal to base funding on NAPLAN results is seriously problematic. NAPLAN testing and data collection was never intended for such a purpose and risks taking away from its true intent which was to identify and assist students who are falling behind minimum national standards.
As the Alternative Minister for Education and Skills, I will always support additional funding for our schools however we must learn from elsewhere and invest in areas which have been shown to actually result in improved student outcomes.
That is why we have created a $60 million Education Investment and School Retention Fund which will commence the process of extending high schools to year 12 and addressing our low year 12 completion rates.
Improving educational achievement must always be our primary goal. I am very attracted to portable funding loadings to follow students with disability wherever they study.
The world’s best performing education systems are not the biggest spenders, it is their strong focus on teaching and learning, as well as what happens in the classroom that sets them apart.
If the Federal Government hadn’t squandered the budget surplus and raided the savings left by the Howard Govt, there would be little question about its ability to find extra money for education. Remember all those $900 payments, school halls that cost double their value and the pink batts? It took Howard 9 years to pay off the former Labor Govt’s $96b debt – releasing some $8bn per year for quality of life services. Now our debt has gone back up to around $150b. See the problem?
Hi Michael,
Haven’t had a chance to take the Gonski Review to pieces yet but, following it, I have had parents make the comment ” All we want from Will Hodgman and Michael Ferguson is that they will not force schools to close.” I am reassuring them but it would be a good move to get that message out there again – loud, clear and concise. I don’t think that it can be said enough times because there are so many people who cannot/will not read beyond the first sentence of any politician’s statement.