this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
74 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

3649 readers
66 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Calls for special deal to be struck for NT, which has biggest funding gap between public and private schools

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Nath@aussie.zone -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There is a public school system available to everyone.

That sounds like it should be the case, but it isn't. The Catholic schools alone account for something like 20% of the Australian student population. If just those schools weren't there, our existing education system would collapse. Like it or not, we all rely on the presence of independant schools in our community.

If people want to send their kids to private schools, they have every right to, but should be prepared to cover 100% of the expenses without any aid from the government.

This argument has been made before. In 1962, it lead to six Catholic schools in Goulburn to go on strike. The influx of 5,000 students on the public schools in the area demonstrated that independant schools save taxpayers money. Go have a read about it: https://www.robertmenziesinstitute.org.au/on-this-day/goulburn-catholic-school-strike

Imagine that on a national scale. And again, that's just the Catholics. There is not capacity in the public system for every student in Australia. Not by a long shot.

[–] UnknownQuantity@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll just leave you with some numbers. Here are school numbers (government, catholic, independent...). Please note the vast difference in number of government schools VS the rest. https://shorturl.at/tEPT6 (acara.edu.au)

Here is how much funding the education department provides this year: 10.6B for 6600 public schools and 16.4B for ~3000 of the rest. https://shorturl.at/bFH89 (education.gov.au)

All we need to do is fund public schools. Given the fact that Australia has a secular government and the catholic church pays no taxes, while still receiving taxpayer funded handouts it's only fair.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This has been quite the rabbit hole, thanks for sharing. I've learned more about how much fundung the Federal government provides for government schools (for the students at my kids' school, it's about $2.5k per kid per year).

Are you following topic under discussion? The headline summarises the issue, but the crux of it is also with the very link you pasted: "State and territory governments provide most of the public recurrent funding for government schools. The Commonwealth provides most of the public recurrent funding for non-government schools."

You've compared the funding that the federal government provides to government schools to what it provides to independent schools. However, the bulk of government school funding comes from the state governments. Total government funding (state + federal) to public students is a greater than what non-government schools receive. Normally.

Which brings us to the article: Only ACT, SA and WA are meeting or exceeding their fundung targets for 2023. The other states are lagging a little.

All we need to do is fund public schools. Given the fact that Australia has a secular government and the catholic church pays no taxes, while still receiving taxpayer funded handouts it’s only fair.

I don't see the solution you're suggesting. Do you think the federal government should take education off the states? I don't think that will be a popular policy. I only picked on the Catholic schools because they have so many students. This isn't a discussion about religion or tax reform. Pretend rather that the Catholic schools are being run by the National David Boon Fan Club. It changes nothing.

[–] UnknownQuantity@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

There are national education standards, so yes, take the state government decisions out of the equation. Say: "provide $x per student, we'll contribute $y per student." we don't need states (or federal govt) increasing contributions to private schools while decreasing it for public schools. I understand that being in opposition you have to contradict just about anything the government says. I also understand that being in government you have to think of not alienating the swing voters. Yes, doing the right thing is not in the nature of governments.

Solution is simple if you're not the government or the opposition. Gradually phase out funding to independent schools, while you set up new ones.

What we need is equal opportunity for every kid. Private schools are the antithesis of that. If your family can afford it, you're getting a leg up, if they can't, well, here's some bootstraps.

Sorry about honing on the catholic schools. You've mentioned them and my partner still has PTSD from her catholic education. I also see no need for religious school funding, especially those run by the biggest child molestation organisation on the planet.

[–] foo@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Non government schools aren't entitled to any money from the public.

[–] Noughmad@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

How can you consider Catholic schools "independent"?

And the idea isn't too get rid of those schools, it's to use the money that usually goes to these schools to fund regular public schools instead.