Federal Election debate lacking education focus

What should be read into the lack of focus on education and schools in the debate? The first thing that is clear is that the Labor Government appears content to build on its first term achievements in this area.

The Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government would continue its investment in initiatives such as improving teacher quality and trade training in our schools.

On the other side Opposition Leader Tony Abbott showed in his failure to talk about the issue in any detail that he doesn't want the education of our children to be a central focus in the campaign.

That was particularly disappointing because public school teachers were looking for an explanation as to why he believes cutting $3.1 billion from the education budget will improve opportunities for students.

Those cuts will disproportionately affect public schools and include the abolition of the Computers in Schools program and an end to the rollout of trade training centres that allow students to develop vocational skills during their secondary school years.

In total 120,000 secondary students will miss out on computers and 900 schools will miss out on trades training facilities in the next four years if the Coalition is elected.

Teachers were also looking for an explanation of why Mr Abbott has promised to maintain a discredited and inequitable schools funding system that delivers almost three times the money to private schools that it does to public schools. The Coalition has made the decision to fund schools regardless of income and resources even before a major review of schools funding, which is now underway, is completed.

He also failed to explain how a promise to make private schools fees tax deductible combined with his cuts to public school spending are anything other than a strategy for privatising schools.

We need both sides of politics committed to supporting our public schools and spending more on them, not less.

Angelo Gavrielatos
AEU Federal President