Labor Green alliance knife at the throat of non government schools

01/09/10

Parents who scrimp and save to send their children to a non-government school would be rightly alarmed by the fusion today between the Labor Party and the Greens.

While Labor paid lip-service to the non-government sector to avoid any controversy during the election campaign, the Greens have been violently anti-choice in education, as is reflected by their policies.

The Greens policy document calls to:

• end the current non-government school funding arrangements by the end of 2010;
• end funding of the ‘very wealthiest private schools’;
• return the total level of funding for all non-government schools to the 2003-04 levels which would slash current funding by $1000 per student; and,
• restrict the development of ‘new private schools’.

All of this amounts to higher school fees for parents and less choice in education. It also flags the restoration of the private school hit list.

These policies will increase cost of living expenses for millions of Australian families and result in school closures of many small Catholic and Independent schools, especially in regional areas.

The Coalition has guaranteed the current SES funding arrangements and indexation of funding for non-government schools into the future.

Julia Gillard and Labor have put a stay of execution on the non-government sector until 2013, but no one knows what plans this new fusion of Labor and the Greens will place back on the table under a new Gillard Government.