Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

School needs matter most

By Jack Keating - posted Monday, 5 March 2007


The patterns of enrolments across Australian school sectors reported in The Age (February 27, 2007, "Parents shun state schools") reflect a trend that now spans a generation. Since the Whitlam Government released its Karmel report in 1975 and made substantial levels of funding available to non-government schools there has been a steady drift from government to non-government schools that averages about 0.4 per cent per year.

The responses to this trend from governments and other stakeholders reflect a 30-year-old debate in Australia about public education and the funding of non-government schools. This debate has maintained a public perception of a stand-off between the government and non-government school sectors that has crippled any capacity for rational policy on these issues at the national and state levels.

Ownership of the schools should not matter as long as students have reasonable access to schools that will deliver a good quality education within a curriculum that meets public expectations. For example, the Netherlands and Belgium, both of which have strong public systems, have a majority of their schools enrolments in publicly funded church schools.

Advertisement

The problem in Australia, and unlike the situation in most other OECD countries, is that despite public funding, non-government schools can be selective in their enrolments, through fees, scholarships and other means. Thus the long-standing fear in Australia is that the drift in enrolments will deprive government schools of their better-off and more scholastically capable students. This would lead to government schools being seen as residual places for students from poor household and students who are rejected from non-government schools because of their weak scholastic performances or behaviour.

There is some evidence for this fear. The recent growth in non-government enrolments has mainly been in the independent, non-Catholic sector, and the increased enrolments are strongly concentrated in students from wealthier families. However, these broad figures hide other patterns.

The largest element of the non-government sector, Catholic schools, is relatively stable in its enrolment share, which is distributed fairly evenly across all income groups. The sector looks like, and to a large extent behaves like, a public sector, being mostly publicly funded, delivering the public curriculum and charging mostly low fees, and in some cases no fees.

If they were added to the government school enrolments in Australia, as they are in most other OECD countries, public education market share would grow to 85 per cent.

On the other hand within the government sector, apart from the loss of some better-off students to the independent sector there are changing internal patterns of enrolments. In Victoria, there has been a significant migration of better-off students to large primary and secondary schools that achieve good results in tests and the VCE.

Correspondingly there is a growing concentration of poorer students in small schools with weak results.

Advertisement

The trends are expressions of a robust school education market. As numerous surveys have shown, parents choose on the basis of their image of a good school, not the sector. Schools are aware that the surest way to achieve this image is to concentrate scholastic power among their enrolments. The temptation to use selection to achieve this is high.

The problem is not the residualisation of the government school sector. A significant proportion of government schools do very well. The list of the schools that gained most entries into Melbourne and Monash universities, published in The Sunday Age (February 18, 2007) included six government and no Catholic schools.

However, there is strong evidence that the growing concentration of poorer students in small schools is a serious equity issue.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All

First published in The Age on February 28, 2007.



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

4 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Jack Keating is a professorial fellow in education at the University of Melbourne.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jack Keating

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Jack Keating
Article Tools
Comment 4 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy