Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to stand up here and talk on this matter of public importance about one of the most important issues confronting Australia, and that is the quality of our education system. I am quite despondent about the way the debate has deteriorated so rapidly, especially over the last few weeks.

If we think about the antecedents to the Gonski review into the funding of schools in Australia, we wonder why it was tasked with the important job of having a serious overhaul of the system. That was because we knew, and have known for a significant period, that we have, essentially, an inequitable system of school funding in Australia. It is a system that has been cobbled together over time, with opportunistic, political, ad hoc decision making about how we fund our school systems. We also know—and this is probably one of the main reasons that there was an impetus to having this review take place—that performance in Australian education systems has been slipping seriously, especially in the last decade.

So it is really disingenuous, first of all, for Senator Mason to suggest that that was something the current government is responsible for. By my calculations, that was happening on Prime Minister Howard's patch. We know that since 2000 there has been a serious decline in the way Australian students are performing by international standards. Our scores on the PISA tests—the Program for International Student Assessment—have shown that where we were pretty proudly performing in literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy, over the last nine years we have seriously declined in those.

Clearly that really poses a dilemma for a nation that it is facing serious challenges in the 21st century for which we need the best educated population that we can have.

But let's go back to the Gonski review. As Senator Stephens pointed out, that is an eminent panel of people. There has been no scuttlebutt or impugning of their credentials. When the review was released publicly in February, it was generally met with great respect because there was clearly a great amount of research and erudition behind the findings of that review. In absolute good faith those people, who are all highly experienced in education and highly motivated to reform Australia's discredited education funding system, came up with what is essentially a blueprint for generational change that is based on principles of consistency and fairness. Almost unanimously the initial report was greeted with respect and great consideration. Many commentators on public education and education generally in Australia have welcomed not only the findings in that report which confirmed what many people were already concerned about but also the really clear-eyed, fair, logical proposal as to how to reform the system.

We know, as I said, that the precursors to the review were that there was concern there is an inequitable system and that our performance standards are slipping. What did the review find? The review found that there is clearly an inequitable system: that the system is broken, it is illogical, it is not transparent, it is underfunded and essentially it is unfair. The review found too that performance is indeed slipping, both internationally and within Australia. Worst of all, the review found something that is to our eternal shame, and that is why I cannot be flippant about this, even if that is the tone of the debate today. This finding is that in Australia children's opportunity to reach their full potential is nothing to do with their inherent ability; it is about the opportunity that they have, the schools they attend, and the ability of those schools to do the job that we need them to do if we are going to educate our population for this century.

Clearly we know that there are performance gaps across Australia that are causally linked to advantage. These gaps are not linked to inherent ability. I do not buy the idea that children in particular areas that we can map are somehow less able than children who live in more advantaged areas. We actually know it is about the resources available to the schools and the schools that are available for those kids to attend. We know that children who are experiencing disadvantage are going to need additional supports at school to help them to reach their full potential. I cannot understand how anyone could argue with the basic proposition that comes out of the Gonski review, which is that we absolutely need to provide a fair, level playing field so that every single kid in Australia has the opportunity to reach their full potential. It is not only fair and right for each and every kid, it is obviously what a clever, smart and fair society would do.

I would like to go to an email that I received yesterday from a parent in Victoria that really touched me, because she was watching the debate that has been going on and spoke from the heart. In a sense, this email sums up some of the important aspects of this debate, which is knowing that the public education system still educates the vast majority of our kids and educates the vast majority of those children who are going to experience some disadvantage and some difficulty in achieving their full potential, whether it be because they are from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, they are Indigenous kids, they are being educated in remote schools, or they are children with a disability—80 per cent of children with a disability are educated in our public schools. Whatever the reason, it is clear that if we are going to fund schools on the basis of need then a significant amount of additional funding—it has been estimated we will need $5 billion or more to bring us up to less than the OECD average—is needed to go to schools on the basis of need and to those schools that are going to be looking particularly at educating kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The person who wrote to me said that her children attend or have attended a country college in Victoria, and her eldest daughter and son both achieved strong results in year 12 which saw them accepted into their first preferences for uni. She said: 'We have a daughter in year 9 and a son in year 6.' She has been on the school council for 12 of the last 13 years, including three years as the chairperson. In that little country school, the number of pupils in the secondary section hovers around 100 to 110. There are currently 13 students, she thinks, who have been taken out of that school to go to private boarding schools—so they have been required to board away from home. She said: 'That is over 10 per cent of our potential funding gone from both the community and the school, making it increasingly difficult for our local school to provide the breadth and depth of curriculum to the students that remain.' But she went on to say: 'Our school is exemplary. It is led by an inspiring principal who is driven by her desire for all students to have every opportunity to receive their best. They offer a wider curriculum than they should be able to, and they do this for the good of the students. We often have students achieving ATARs in the 90s, and have a high percentage of students that go on to either further study or full-time employment.'

She goes on to make the point that she understands that people have a choice and choose to send their children away because of traditional sporting reasons, but she also raises the issue that some parents now, because of the divisive, discrediting and unseemly argument that is going on, believe that they cannot exercise a real choice by sending their kids to public schools. That is partly because public schools have been underfunded and partly because there is an attempt to divide the community, I think, and to sell an idea that to get an education now it is necessary for those who have the means to send their children away from the public education system and to private schools. She goes on to say: 'My husband and I are proud products of the public education system and we choose for our children to also be a part of this system,' because she also thinks that it is good for all the students at the school and for the community as a whole. She said that her children by going to this school learn how to learn and to value all members of society, rather than being removed from those who may be seen to be a part of the fragmentation where you end up having different classes of society being educated in different ways.

She says, 'I know my children can reach their goals with hard work and the continued support from us and the school.' I think she is a good example of someone who understands the importance of having a universal, quality public education system so that all children have the opportunity to be educated together and have the opportunity to reach their best potential. We need to get on with Gonski, so no more delay and no more division from the coalition! Let us just get on and do what Gonski has told us we know we need to do for the sake of our kids.