After being born with a range of physical challenges that had seen him endure a dozen major and minor surgical procedures by age five, my son Harrison required a nurse to visit him at school twice a day for the first two essential years of his education.
Without this support – which would not be available without government funding – Harrison would have suffered huge setbacks to his academic and social development.
Australia’s federal education minister, Simon Birmingham, is determined to slash billions of dollars from our nation’s schools by cancelling Gonski agreements designed to ensure disadvantaged, disabled and special-needs students get the support they need to learn and thrive. It’s students like Harrison who’ll suffer.
This says everything we need to know about the values of the Turnbull government and the priorities of the South Australian senator Birmingham.
Birmingham pays no respect to Australia’s teachers and students. He’s seeking to divide states, education sectors and parents against one another to detract from the unassailable fact you can do more for struggling students with the $4.5bn promised for the years 2018-19 than without it.
It’s basic maths.
He can draw attention to differences between the various agreements signed with state governments, he can make wealthy parents feel hard-done-by because kids from the poorest families receive more federal financial support, and he can run the tired argument that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to results – but all this is obfuscation.
Put simply, you can’t do as much with Birmingham’s pledge of an extra $1.2bn for the three years of 2018-20 as you can with the Gonski agreements’ $4.5bn over 2018-19.
No amount of “improved quality” can meet this need. For my son, it’s a health condition that required an extra set of hands with particular skills. For other kids, it’s learning difficulties that need one-on-one tutoring or small-group sessions with a specialist teacher.
For students with a disability, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds or facing other challenges to having an equitable chance of success the kind of support they need would be different again – but all with one common factor: if you don’t have money to hire extra staff or broker in specialist interventions these children will be left behind.
Birmingham likes to argue that he’s still planning on distributing education funding on the basis of need. But he’s neglecting logic: his funding pledge simply can’t hire as many extra teachers, support staff or specialist teams. Every dollar cut from education means a child like Harrison has less opportunity to reach their potential.
In South Australia, which both Birmingham and I both call home, cancelling the Gonski agreement will mean $335m less to give our students a more equal chance to thrive. The Gonski reforms identify kids in most need – this $335m ensures schools have money to meet those needs. Seeking to break the agreement with our state means Birmingham will remove educational support from the children who need it most.
The Turnbull government sees the Gonski agreements as an opportunity to make budget savings rather than as an investment in a prosperous future. We know children who receive a good education are less likely to rely on social services or require the spending of corrections resources and more likely to find secure work, pay tax and assist in their future offspring’s own education.
Seeking to balance the national budget on the backs of disadvantaged students is not only harmful to educational success, it damages the future of our community and economy.
If he succeeds in breaking the Gonski agreements, Birmingham’s legacy will be wrecking the opportunity for thousands of children to learn, thrive and contribute to the future prosperity of our state and nation.
