Teachers' union needs to stop whingeing

The Australian, Editorial, 17 June 2008

Good school facilities help boost performance.

LEAVING biased and shrill arguments to one side, a few basic facts need to be understood about government funding of public and private schools. The latest available figures show that in 2005-06, the average recurrent government spending - state and federal combined - was $11,243 per state school student. The comparable figure per private student was $6268.

Private students also benefit from the fees paid by their parents, which can range from $1500 a year to more than $20,000. In exercising that choice, such parents, who also help fund state schools, save taxpayers billions of dollars that would otherwise need to be spent if the private students were in the state system.

In raising serious and legitimate concerns about capital spending on state schools, the Australian Education Union is misdirecting its wrath. At the weekend, an independent report commissioned by the AEU was released, showing that between 2002 and 2005, public schools on average missed out by about $1.2 million each when compared with private school capital investment.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos was correct to argue that 'every Australian child deserves to be taught in a school with quality learning environments and modern equipment'. But in blaming '22 years of under-funding by the Howard government' for 'a huge shortfall in investment for public school infrastructure', Mr Gavrielatos played down the fact that state governments, not the commonwealth, are primarily responsible for state schools. The regrettable fact that investment in state schools has slipped below what it should be is overwhelmingly the states' failure, despite their coffers being swollen with GST revenue.

What also needs to be understood is that in comparing capital expenditure in state and private schools, the report, titled Rebuilding Public Schools: Investment Targets for 2020, compared apples and oranges. It compared government capital investment in public schools with joint parental-government capital spending in private schools. As the independent school sector pointed out yesterday, 87per cent of capital spending in that sector in 2005 came from parents, 9 per cent came from the federal government and just 4 per cent from state governments. In the Catholic systemic schools, about 80 per cent of the capital spending in some states comes from the parents, the rest from governments.

In simple dollar terms, figures produced by the independent sector show that the federal government spent $305 per government school student on capital works in 2006/7, and $183 per non-government student. The fact that private schools are spending more stems from the fact that they tend to borrow for capital projects and build the debt servicing into the fees of future generations. In 2005, the net total borrowings of the independent school sector was $2.5billion or $5770 per student.

Enrolment patterns are also a factor, with the ABS reporting 7.1per cent growth in the private sector and a 0.6 per cent decline in state enrolments from 2002 to 2006. State governments should lift capital investment in their schools to narrow the gaps identified in the report. But important as they are, facilities are not the only factor in performance. Many space-restricted inner-city state and private schools outperform schools with more lavish campuses. Teaching quality, curriculum, parental support and discipline also matter. State teacher unions should stop whingeing about the private schools, and work constructively with governments to improve their own sector.

Click here to read Matt Ryan's research: Public Fnding of Australian Schools - The Facts (PDF).

 

 

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