After Coalition backbench MPs, led by Tony Abbott, howled outrage yesterday over the Turnbull Government’s revamped $18.6 billion “Gonski 2.0” needs-based school funding plan, former education minister Christopher Pyne has hit back. From The Australian:
Former prime minister Tony Abbott said it was “absolutely imperative” for the government to respect independent and Catholic schools given the Coalition’s history of backing parental choice in education…
“Knowing a little bit about politics I suspect that the government will decide that it’s on a loser if it does anything that looks like it’s disadvantaging Catholic schools,” he said…
Mr Pyne insisted Catholic schools will pocket more money under “good reforms”.
“Catholic schools are getting a billion dollar increase in spending and a 3.7 per cent rise in spending over the next 10 years so how anybody could feel they are losing when they are getting a billion dollars extra is beyond me,” he told Nine Network today…
The government has won praise in some quarters for pledging an $18.6 billion injection over a decade that increases funding for more than 9000 schools, but the new formula is taking money away from 24 schools and slowing growth for 353 others.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham dialled up the heat on the Catholic sector and premiers by saying critics of his reform were trying to “blackmail or bully” the government to extract more money.
Last year’s report, entitled Uneven Playing Field: The State of Australia’s Schools, projected that under existing policy settings, non-government school students – and those in Catholic schools in particular – are on track to receive far greater taxpayer funding than average public school students by 2020:
How the likes of Tony Abbott can support such an inequitable outcome beggars belief. Removing some funding from the non-government school sector and redirecting it into disadvantaged public schools is entirely sensible and represents good policy.
