Education funding has become one of the main platforms of this federal election campaign.
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The focus, for Labor and its leader Bill Shorten at least, has quickly turned to pledging money to the Gonski school funding model. But one is left to wonder: how many people actually understand what Gonski is, how it works and what it sets out to achieve? You see plenty of union types floating around with their green “I Give A Gonski” placards, but do you know what it’s really all about?
David Gonski is a Sydney philanthropist, who was once described as the nation’s best connected businessmen. He is also a qualified lawyer, and among his many other achievements and titles, is Chancellor of the University of NSW. In 2011, Mr Gonski – in his role as chairman of the Expert Advisory Panel of the Commonwealth Government's Review of the Funding of Schools in Australia – produced what is now referred to as the Gonski review.
In it, Mr Gonski warned that too many children were missing out on a suitable education due to a lack of resources at some schools.
In the plan laid out in the review, schools would be funded according to the educational requirements of the pupils or students. And that makes sense – why throw buckets of cash at a school where children are already performing up to the required standard when you can pour extra resources into a school where the children are most disadvantaged and underperforming.
In 2013, then PM Julia Gillard announced that her Labor government would fund the Gonski reforms to the tune of $9.4 billion – as long as the states agreed to fund $5.1 billion themselves for a grand total of $14.5 billion over six years. A week later, at a Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra, the states failed to reach an agreement. Fast forward three years and Gonski is back in the headlines as an election platform.
Overall, Labor has pledged $37 billion to fully fund the Gonski reforms over the next 10 years. It’s a huge investment particularly when you compare it with the Liberals’ promise to invest an extra $1.2 billion in schools, which is still well short on a yearly basis to Labor’s promise.
Given the importance of this nation’s education system, perhaps it’s time more emphasis was put on explaining to the people of Australia just what they will be voting for on July 2.
