Defend public education!

A letter of support to NSW Teachers from the Socialist Alliance

Attacks on the union

Socialist Alliance stands side by side with teachers in defending the value of a free, secular and well funded public education system. We totally reject the notion that chronically under funded public schools must ‘compete’ in an ‘education market’.

Socialist Alliance condemns the NSW government’s pro-private sector agenda that decreases funding to public education and other social services. Their agenda promotes the “user pay” concept that reduces education to nothing more than a commodity to be purchased by those with the most money.

NSWTF campaign

Teachers' campaigns in other states:

 Email to a friend

add a comment to this page

There are 5 comments on this article

By QuinnTheLegend

I am a student at a Public school in SA, and although our school has a waiting list, - reallly don't understand why. there are a few good teachers, especially in specialised subjects, however there are also some teachers who automatically discrimante some work from some of our students because of a lack of communication between teahcers. for example, i wrote and essay in english, and my teacher, who shall remain anonymous, is one of the best teachers in the state, and i scored a perfect 20. Yet, with my Australian Stuidies class, my fresh-out-of-uni teacher fave me a 12/20 because apparently it was set-out wrong.

I am all for teachers getting paid more, but how can they expect support from students when such things are occuring.

By Captain Capitalism

This web sites discrimination against private schooling is ill-founded. If individuals want a religious or spiritual themed education then the government should support these institutions to provide a balanced education education for all.

Its also worth noting a well funded and supported public system alleviates stress on the public system by lowering the amount of students the public system has to educate.

In conclusion the public system needs a well funded private system and a well funded private system provides greater choice for all.

By Peter

When Howard came to power in 1996, 43 per cent of federal grants to all schools went to the public schools responsible for educating more than two-thirds of all students. By the time he left office last year, total grants had doubled in real terms to $10 billion a year. But whereas real grants to public schools grew by 68 per cent over the period, grants to private schools grew by 137 per cent. The effect was to cut the public schools' share of the kitty to 35 per cent. It is public education that has been discriminated against!

By hegemony&socialist_strategy

Having been a teacher in a Christian school (and being a Christian+teacher myself) AND commited to radical [social] democracy, I take it that the government funding of these schools is not necessarily a 'good' thing for religious communities themselves.

Apart from the obvious issues of distributive justice vis-a-vis public schools (which is a very important issue itself), government funding also undermines the counter-hegemonic impulses in these schools/religions. Getting govt funding requires religious schools to sign up to a whole raft of 'requirements' to ensure that they are in fact "good" for Australia.

Does this then serve to underwrite the social order "as it is"; creating a syncretistic religious schooling system bereft of its 'prophetic' (social critique) function?

The catch 22 of govt funding of private religious schools is that they cease to be very religious in any substantive sense - e.g. when everyone has to gather around the flag to sing the national anthem - and what we might end up with are schools that are purportedly different only in label, and education becomes like the kind of agony one experiences in a supermarket over what brand of pet food to buy in an array of inane chices.

By Lola

People should leave their religious beliefs out of the school, learn about Jesus all you want at home. Learn about facts at school; then when you get home you can read about magical fairies up in the clouds all you want.