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原文如下
Only minuses for public schools on the Abbott list
Maralyn Parker
Wednesday, August 04, 2010 at 03:55pm
So far there is nothing from Abbott for public schools in this election. Instead we have a growing list of things he will take away.
Say goodbye to computers, trades training centres and high speed broadband in public schools. But top of my list is students.
The Liberal Party’s main education policy - check it out on the website - is WE WILL PROTECT CHOICE.
This is a promise to help parents take children out of public schools and keep them out.
So the Liberals should tell us - what is so wrong with public schools that people need to be protected from them? We deserve an answer.
The increasing offers and policies to help families move away from public schools have become a very possible huge national futures problem.
Even if we jump in and assume there is something awfully wrong with Australian public schools - where is the plan to fix them?
It is appalling that Tony Abbott, a prospective prime minister of Australia, has only one solution for the majority of Australian families using, as he sees it, problematic public schools - move your child out.
This shows a profound ignorance of what life is like and the choices available for most families in this nation.
The Coalition’s Education Tax Refund will include school fees. If parents pay $4000 in school fees they will get a $2000 rebate. This policy will tempt middle income public school families to try the nearest low fee private school.
And that is not the only enticement. Children with disabilities will be offered a $20,000 Education Card they can take with them to any school. There is no doubt some will take it to a private school.
It is a token policy though - only 6000 children Australia-wide will get it and there is no obligation for any private school to actually enrol the children who turn up with cards. That is another issue.
I guess the depth of thinking about this is reflected on what we find on the Liberal Party’s education policies webpage under the heading Liberal Ideas for Education.
There is a photo of Christopher Pyne - the next education minister if Abbott wins - with the slogan Raise Standards in Education, followed by “The Coalition will work with the states to give principals the right to pay the best teachers more’’. That’s it. That’s the idea. See it here
I visited a very disadvantaged public school in Sydney’s west on Monday where Labor’s Building The Education Revolution had given the school its only upgrade in fifty years and a new technologically advanced library.
The school also received $90,000 in Labor’s National Partnership money for literacy and numeracy that is helping buy time, resources and support for a whole school numeracy program.
It has been promised another half a million in low SES funding by Gillard in 2010. There is an amazing buzz of quality teaching, leadership and renewal about this school.
Under an Abbott government - forget the extra $500,000 - it will become just one of the thousands of Australian schools the prime minister thinks families should leave as soon as they can. |
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