Gonski

Dear reader, there’s quite a bit of talk about education funding and the withering away of Gonski. Remember Gonski? He was the furry little fellow borrowed from Jim Henson’s franchise (the Muppetts) to introduce a more equitable funding steam into Australian schools.

Mr Abbott, seeks ‘the suppository of wisdom’.

It went something like this; schools would be funded to ensure an average, stable, indexed, revenue stream for all schools, with special initiatives designed to help sections of the community who were poor, disadvantaged and what used to be referred to as “underprivileged”. It also made allowances for Schools with a ‘National Plan for School Improvement’, which would fund an equitable upgrade of facilities and education infrastructure across the board, and allowed a mechanism to ensure that the whole system would continuously improve. Something that was called ‘the schooling resource standard’.

Good thing, the that the first thing the Abbott Government did when it got into office was to pull back on the entire Gonski juggernaut and stop it stone cold dead in its tracks. The former P.M, though agreeing to the principles of Gonski before the election said he was ‘misheard’, and the cut funding of education right cross the board. Well, he cut funding to state schools, and left the floodgates open, (so to speak) of increased funding to private schools. Now the Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham says that schools, (he means private ones) are overfunded. We think he’s incorrect. What he really meant was ” State Schools”.

The correct education model. More taxpayers money for Private Schools, to fund the education of kiddies whose parent’s work tirelessly to avoid paying tax.

Mr Birmingham is trying to be diplomatic.

Strip funding from remote schools! Good Work in progress!

What he really means is that some schools, (particularly those without nice uniforms and a tradition of kind hearted old boys and girls) don’t really deserve the funding as outlined by Gonski. And even if they did get the increased funding they’d probably fritter it away on teaching their students useless stuff like politics, history and science. In this regard he’s quite right, and righter still for putting the kibosh on that ‘Safe Schools’ nonsense. Kids need a basic understanding of reading, writing and arithmetic so they can fully capitalise on the bounty of privately run training schemes they can enter when they leave school. They also don’t need to worry about careers or even getting in the first rung of the ‘ladder of opportunity’ in the innovation revolution, because as Mr Turnbull says, ‘we can’t all be Merchant Bankers, and who will be left to clean the toilets and take the rubbish out’?

And that’s why it’s quite correct the conservatives have gonged Gonski. If you let education out of the bag, make it accessible and affordable for the lowest rung, you threaten the very fabric of society. It happened once before in the sixties and seventies and got us into a frightful mess. Students who questioned authority and the status quo, and occasionally kids form dirt poor backgrounds getting into positions of influence. So, he’s on the right track. Keep boosting funding for private and religious schools. They’ll use it wisely and ensure that for generations to come, those entrusted with an education know their place. It’s important that the principles of ‘Nation Building’, imagination and human potential remain unchallenged. It’s comforting the knowledge that nothing changes.