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Australian Education Union, Victorian Branch

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feature<br />

We give a GONSKI<br />

What difference could the Gonski recommendations make to <strong>Victorian</strong> schools?<br />

AEU members headed to Canberra to let their MPs know. Sian Watkins joined them.<br />

PRINCIPALS, teachers and parents are urged<br />

to lobby the Federal Government to enact the<br />

recommendations of the Gonski Review of federal<br />

school funding by year’s end to prevent momentum<br />

for change being derailed by the Coalition and<br />

private-school interests.<br />

About 65% of the Federal Government’s direct<br />

spending on education goes to private schools.<br />

<strong>Victorian</strong> state school parents, principals and<br />

teachers visited Canberra last month as part of an<br />

AEU delegation to remind MPs of the urgent need<br />

to enact the Gonski Review’s proposed overhaul<br />

of school funding. The review recommends that an<br />

extra $5 billion a year be spent on schools, with<br />

most of this extra money going to state schools,<br />

which teach the majority of disadvantaged students.<br />

This extra money equates, roughly, to about<br />

$1500 for every state school student. Michael<br />

Phillips, principal of Ringwood Secondary College,<br />

reckons his school would get an extra $700,000<br />

every year. Legislation before the end of the year<br />

is vital to ensure that the foundations of change<br />

are well underway before next year’s federal<br />

election. AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos<br />

said the Tony Abbott-led Coalition would keep the<br />

existing, indefensible funding system should it win<br />

government.<br />

Sydney University’s Dr Jim McMorrow told<br />

delegates that, under existing funding arrangements<br />

introduced by the former Howard government,<br />

federal funding to state schools will decrease by<br />

12% in real terms over the next two years (a cut<br />

of more than $670 million a year). But funding to<br />

private schools will increase by 15% in real terms<br />

(a $1.3bn increase on this year’s non-government<br />

spending).<br />

Dr Morrow said state schools were doing all the<br />

“heavy lifting” and their share of federal funding<br />

would decline further with the approaching end of<br />

National Partnerships funding. It was “time for a<br />

sustained federal commitment to public schools,”<br />

he said.<br />

DELEGATE Michael Phillips, principal of Ringwood<br />

Secondary College, reckons his school would get about<br />

$700,000 extra a year if Gonski’s recommendations were<br />

implemented.<br />

What would he spend the extra money on? “Where do I start?<br />

“More learning support programs and I’d do the ESL program<br />

differently. I’d halve their class sizes. I’d run more stuff for kids that<br />

need extending which is important when you’re competing with the<br />

private schools in the eastern suburbs.<br />

“I’d spend more money on the co-curricular programs like music and sport<br />

— we’ve got nothing when you see what the private schools have got in these areas — and deliver<br />

more PD for staff.”<br />

Phillips said that some refugee students arrived at his school with two years of education in total.<br />

“They only get three years of funded support in high school but they need it for much longer. Gonski<br />

would allow me to support ESL kids right through to Year 12.” ◆<br />

Christine<br />

Milne,<br />

Greens leader<br />

“We are in the middle of a<br />

mining boom with one of the<br />

strongest economies in the<br />

Western world. Now is the time<br />

to fix structural<br />

deficiencies in education<br />

funding.”<br />

18 aeu news | june 2012

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