“Tony Abbott proved today he would be the private schools prime minister,” said AEU Federal President, Angelo Gavrielatos, in a statement on 20 August. “Mr Abbott’s comments betray a total ignorance of all the work undertaken by the Gonski Review that showed overwhelmingly that the underfunding in education is in public schools.

“Not only has Tony Abbott ruled out giving public schools a cent of the 3.8 million Australian dollars (AUD) a year the Gonski Review said they urgently require, but he has already outlined cuts in schools worth almost AUD 3 billion.”

Gavrielatos went on to say that Abbott’s cuts would hurt students in public schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the nation.

“His comments today confirm Tony Abbott’s plan for public schools is to cut funding, sack as many as one in seven teachers and increase class sizes. Every school would be affected. He obviously doesn’t believe in public education and he would make it harder for children across the country to get a high quality education.”

Coalition’s commitment meaningless

Reacting to the Coalition’s commitment that no school would be worse off under an Abbott Government, Gavrielatos added that it is either a spectacular backflip or a meaningless statement designed to draw fire away from claims that public schools are overfunded.

“For the commitment to mean anything,” he noted, “the Coalition would have to abandon its promise to cut billions from public schools, including those in the poorest communities in the nation.”

The Coalition would also have to be prepared to significantly increase recurrent funding for public schools which is projected, in the current budget forward estimates, to decrease by AUD 673 million in real terms by 2015-16.

“Those cuts include National Partnership funding to public and private schools in disadvantaged communities,” Gavrielatos said. “That funding is making an enormous difference to students and school communities.”

EI: Education must be publicly funded

EI has added its voice to the union’s claims. “We fully support our Australian colleagues in their struggle to get decent work conditions and appropriate funding for the public education system,” EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, said. “EI insists that education is a human right and that, therefore, sustained and sufficient public financing of education is necessary despite any economic downturn or budgetary contraction, in order to achieve that right for all.”

The Resolution on the Sustained Funding of Public Education in the midst of the Economic Crisis adopted at the 6th EI World Congress held in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2011 deplores “the fact that many governments, faced with growing public debt and budgetary constraints which grew exponentially as a result of the bailout of the financial sector, are adopting austerity measures which include cutting public funding for education, deregulating the teaching profession, privatising education and eliminating employees’ rights to collective bargaining”.

It acknowledges that EI is deeply concerned by the increased state-sponsored abuse and scapegoating of teachers, other public service workers and trade unionists during the period of the global financial crisis.

It also calls on all member organisations to ensure that the funding of public education remains the responsibility of their government and that any form of public-private partnerships or multi-stakeholders partnerships does not take over that responsibility.

No impact of crisis on education sector

Among other tasks, this resolution mandates the Executive Board to:

• Seek a commitment from all governments that their education sector and the public service sector would be insulated from the impact of such financial crises, and reinforce efforts globally towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and Education For All Goals
• Urge governments to consider education as the pivotal instrument of social policies
• Call on member organisations at national, regional, and international levels, to step up the campaign, in collaboration with parents, students, and education communities and the wider civil society, in support of quality, accessible, free, publicly-funded education, and to promote education as a public good and a human right.

The full EI Resolution is available here