A key part of the Gonski plan is for school funding to be determined by an independent statutory body it calls the National Schools Resourcing Body, which would be responsible to all state and federal education ministers.
That was not mentioned in the government’s announcement this week. Instead it proposes a “National Plan for School Improvement” which apparently puts the federal bureaucracy firmly in charge.
The School Act that was passed by the Scottish parliament in September 1696 required every parish to have a school – it was the first fully funded universal education law. It was also used to spread the Presbyterian religion and the English language, and to wipe out “popery” and Gaelic, especially in the Highlands – a sort of National Plan for School Improvement.
But at least the 1696 scheme was fully funded. A new tax was imposed on heritors (the landed gentry) and life-renters to pay for a suitable house and the salary of a schoolmaster. If the tax was not paid, the debt was doubled, and if it still wasn’t paid, it was repeatedly doubled until it was paid.
By the end of the 18th century, Scotland’s literacy rate was higher than that of any other country. More importantly, the fact that even the poor were given free education meant that Scotland became Europe’s first modern literate society, with many great intellectuals as well as educated merchants rising up from the lower classes. At that time in Europe and Britain, only the upper class attended school.
David Gonski’s plan to remove educational disadvantage in Australia is only 316 years late, but at least it is based on a tried and tested formula that is too little employed these days.
The Gonski plan involves paying schools per student – a sort of voucher system where the money goes direct to the school, rather than the parents so they can spend it where they wish, which was an earlier, rejected, idea.
The additional $6.5 billion proposed by the government is more than the $5 billion suggested by Gonski, but there is no explanation for the difference. Moreover, that increased funding is not inherent to Gonski’s plan at all: it only results from the Gillard government’s announcement that “no school will be a dollar worse off”.
The important addition from Gonski is to increase funding where disadvantage exists. Talent and intellect is oblivious to social rank or wealth; it follows that a nation that provides equal access to education will end up with more smart people.
Doing this costs money, but it’s not enough on its own. As the Gonski report said: “In the panel’s view increased resources are necessary, but alone are insufficient to improve educational outcomes… The real challenge is to make resource use more effective by building the capacity of school systems and schools to manage and deploy them with appropriate public accountability for what they achieve.”
This article first appeared on Business Spectator.
