The COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged existing inequalities and widened the existing gaps in our social security safety net.
We do not all come to this pandemic with the same resources, coping strategies and strengths to survive it. We might all be in it together, but we are all struggling through it in different ways and facing enormously different challenges.
Nowhere is this more true than in education.
For many kids, learning from home is novel, sometimes difficult, but basically OK. If you have your own room and desk, enough space in the house to be free from interference, your own laptop and fast reliable internet, then you can stay connected and learn online. This is helped if your school has the resources to create interesting and engaging online class options and the IT support to reliably deliver it.
The picture for many other kids isn't so great. If you share a bedroom, have a clunky laptop or are sharing one with a sibling and don't have a quiet space to study, then online learning at home is hard. It's doubly hard if the internet is unreliable, the online lesson plans are more basic and your school's IT is under resourced.
The great majority of students who go to private schools will find themselves in the first position, where online learning is sometimes difficult but basically OK. Meanwhile, too many kids in the public school system are facing the much tougher scenario, where learning at home can be so challenging that it can mean not learning much at all.
So it was particularly galling to see the Prime Minister's announcement this week that he was bringing forward billions of dollars of private school funding to encourage (some might say bribe) private schools to bring their students back early.
Putting to one side the public health arguments about the risks and benefits of reopening schools, this is a clear case of spending more on those who need it least. It's a policy closely calibrated to reinforce privilege, right at a time when those students who have the least need the most support.
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While private schools have billions more, public schools have received nothing. Yet it's the students at public schools who most need the investment right now. This pandemic has exposed not just the digital divide, but also the class divide that is evident in the online schooling experience for students.
It's not as though the Prime Minister isn't aware of these problems. Only a fortnight ago he said:
"During these times, many students will continue distance learning. But we know for some families and students this won't be possible. And their education, what they learn, is at great risk of suffering this year. ... This will particularly be the case for families who are disadvantaged and on lower incomes."
So if we know that distance learning exacerbates existing inequalities, how can the response be to spend billions more to get those students who are least impacted back to school first?
Instead of reinforcing privilege there is so much that can and should be done to bridge the digital and class divide. Here are some very simple suggestions for both state and federal governments to start with.
Commit now to never rolling back the Jobseeker payment to the poverty levels of Newstart. Doubling Newstart has delivered hundreds of thousands of kids from the edge of grinding poverty. It has given their families economic security and stability and that's an excellent base for every student's learning.
We should be making more safe and connected online learning spaces available at every public school. These are desperately needed now to allow students who don't have the space or resources at home to fully engage in online learning. However, they will continue to have value after the pandemic if properly resourced as after school learning centres.
Instead of standing down casual teachers, as many public schools have been forced to through funding constraints, they could be re-tasked with delivering online learning. We should be looking at how to use their expertise to meaningfully engage, even remotely tutor, students who are struggling with online learning and to assist other teachers in creating online learning options.
We must accept that having decent access to the internet is an emerging human right in our society. We need decent internet access to enable us to fully participate in society. It's essential not just for education but also to allow people to access government and medical services. If a service is essential then we should all agree it is no longer something that can be left to the market. A base level NBN package and a basic, but up-to-date, device must be available to every student.
This dreadful pandemic has allowed us to see our society in stark relief. It has highlighted existing divides but it has also shown us how we can mobilise resources on a massive scale to deal with urgent problems. If there are billions of dollars available to deal with the impact of the pandemic on schools and education then let's spend that money where it will do the most good, both during and after the crisis.
Let's break down privilege not reinforce it.
