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Early childhood, primary and secondary education

Australia has one of the most segregated and inequitable education systems among the rich countries of the developed world, and the situation is getting less equal. Class privilege is passed on through a family’s ability to pay for high quality, well-resourced schooling and tertiary education, increasing the educational divide. 

Our public system is underfunded while a greater slice of taxpayer funding goes to already well-resourced private schools. Over many years, state and federal governments – both Labor and Liberal – have refused to put in the required resources. 

Teachers also have a crushing administrative burden, which adds little or nothing to educational outcomes and student welfare. The result is schools in which staff don’t get the time they need to plan classes, evaluate student learning or spend extra time with students.  It’s a different story in exclusive private schools, whose funding is increasing at five times the rate of government schools. Some already have double or more of the resources they need, yet still receive taxpayer money. 

Our school funding system is unfair for students, for teachers and for parents. We need a radical shift – in funding and in power – to address the crisis.

What we think

  1. Governments have a responsibility to provide high-quality and comprehensive public education for all; no child is more deserving, or less deserving, of a quality education than any other child.
  2. Access to quality early childhood education is a key foundation of a child’s social, emotional and cognitive development.
  3. State education must be free.
  4. Funding to schools should be on the basis of need. After applauding the principle of “needs-based funding” set out in the Gonski review released a decade ago, governments have not followed through with the funding needed.
  5. The attempt to create an artificial market between schools by using NAPLAN and the My School website (rather than giving extra resources to the schools that need them) has been a disaster for educational outcomes and for equality. These experiments should be scrapped. 
  6. The level of resources for a child’s education should not be determined by the wealth of the child’s parents. 
  7. School staff working conditions are students’ learning conditions: work in schools should be personally fulfilling, professionally enriching and financially rewarding. 

We'll fight to:

  1. End the public funding of wealthy private schools
  2. Make high quality public education free at all levels, funded in line with the best public education systems in the world. 
  3. Ensure parents are not paying out of pocket for stationery, excursions, uniforms or other expenses.
  4. Ensure secure, well-paid conditions of employment for all educators and education support workers.
  5. Reduce face-to-face teaching hours for primary, secondary and special school teachers. The leading international education systems have the lowest face-to-face teaching hours in the world, allowing for genuine teacher collaboration and feedback within working hours.
  6. Establish a free, universally accessible public preschool/childcare and early childhood education provision system accessible to all, guaranteeing decent high wages and secure jobs for early childhood education workers
  7. End NAPLAN and all high stakes testing that distorts the focus of the curriculum and promotes league tables and competition between schools and institutions. The current accountability system is the source of stress, misery and mental ill-health.