It is a bizarre irony that the former minister for education, Julia Gillard, succeeded Kevin Rudd as prime minister when it is the waste and mismanagement of a program she is entirely responsible for that seriously damaged the Rudd government’s credibility and contributed to his downfall.

Given what we know about Gillard’s abilities, it is not surprising that, during the first few weeks of her administration, the wheels have fallen off her solution to stop the influx of asylum-seekers, and that she is looking decidedly shaky on the mining tax deal.

Over the past 2 1/2 years there hasn’t been an education policy that hasn’t been partially or entirely bungled in some way, shape, or form by the former minister for education.

Putting that aside for the moment, it is worth considering the new Minister for Education and the possible reason he was chosen for the job. Gillard did not decide to go with a young up-and-comer or a firebrand visionary type who could reignite the portfolio of education, which is historically considered one of Labor’s greatest strengths. Instead she opted to go with Simon Crean, trying to shore up problems and inoculate the huge deficiencies in the portfolio in the hope they can quietly sit out the election.

Despite Gillard’s comments this week, Labor simply cannot afford to fight the election on education because of her record of failure in the portfolio. With the effective and energetic Christopher Pyne as shadow education minister, Gillard couldn’t risk putting the portfolio in the hands of a novice.

The opposition now has the opportunity to offer innovative and carefully targeted education policies that can outflank the government, whose record of waste and failure is monumental.
Last week Tony Abbott and Pyne announced the Coalition would redirect school-hall funding directly to schools to manage, thus cutting across Gillard’s continuing complaint that the Coalition would cut school funding.

It is well documented that the grandiosely named Building the Education Revolution has been tainted by chronic waste and mismanagement and reports of systemic rorts, price gouging and collusion in the construction of school halls and other facilities.

From the outset the guidelines for the program were deeply flawed, sending billions of taxpayer dollars directly into the hands of state governments.

State education bureaucracies were entirely ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of the roll-out, so projects were contracted out to developers, who have reportedly been charging exorbitant prices for substandard buildings.

Principals and school councils were largely shunted from the process, told by officials what they would be receiving, whether they liked it or not.

In contrast, the non-government sector has self-managed projects and achieved value for money. The comparison is simply staggering.

It is obvious the quick fix is for the government sector to be treated like the non-government sector and self-manage projects. However, the federal Labor government never entertained the notion that government schools could be trusted to manage projects themselves.

The Coalition has a strong case to prosecute when it comes to its alternative plan of allowing schools to self-manage projects, and the policy announcement has been very well received by the sector.

Leonie Trimper of the Australian Primary Principals Association was reported as saying the government sector was envious of the non-government sector’s ability to self-manage projects, and the notion that principals and schools should self manage infrastructure should become standard practice.

Given that the former Howard government trusted schools to self-manage projects under its Investing in Our Schools program, it is hardly a revolutionary idea. However, the really clever part of the Coalition’s plan is that schools will be given an extraordinary incentive to self-manage their projects and focus on making savings. This is because schools will be entitled to retain any savings made to use for other priorities on their wish list. These funds are now sent back to the same state governments that mismanaged them in the first place.

This could be a very significant amount of money. If estimates are correct then government sector projects should be coming in at two-thirds of what is presently being spent. Hence some government schools with a $3 million grant could save as much as a $1m for other projects.
Imagine what needy schools could do each with a lazy million, without any caveats on how it must be spent. Some of these schools have been neglected for years by the state governments that have primary responsibility for their infrastructure.

This is precisely the source of the growing anger and disappointment about this program. Rather than closing the gap between government and non-government sectors, it is now wider than ever, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.

Parents aren’t stupid; they drive past the local non-government school and see the excellent buildings under construction and have a clear comparison to the often prefabricated buildings peppering the government school sector.

No two ways about it, the Building the Education Revolution has been a crime against the taxpayer. And it is not going to stop under this newly minted Gillard government because it was the PM’s program. Crean’s response to the idea that schools should be entrusted with funds directly is strange from someone tasked to properly administer taxpayer money. He accused the opposition of potentially opening up the government to litigation from cancelled contracts, leaving buildings half finished.

But surely if a school is not getting value for money, or indeed is being outrageously ripped off, then it is necessary for the government to immediately cancel contracts and initiate litigation: something the Gillard government wants to avoid at all costs.

Crean and the taskforce his predecessor established to investigate waste should be hauling contractors and state governments into the courtroom to extract compensation for schools that have been ripped off blind, not to mention the rest of us taxpayers.

Assuredly if the government wins the next election then this matter will eventually disappear from the public consciousness, as such things eventually do, while the judicial inquiry into the program promised by the Coalition will obviously never occur.

Australians will never know for sure how much money was lost in this program or who is
responsible, and Gillard will have escaped unscathed.

But rest assured, if Labor wins this coming election, there will be more mismanagement to come from the Gillard government and we will all be paying the price.

The Weekend Australian, July 17-18, 2010

Australian Catholic school funding is a complex work in progress. Although socially liberal and committed to serve a public function, Australian Catholic schools are virtually uniquely private sector schools, drawing from the Commonwealth and states funds without which they would be unsustainable.

The remainder of their resources comes from low-fee imposts, with the exception of a minority of schools owned by Catholic religious orders which have a demographic profile similar to non-Catholic schools and charge their clients substantially more.

This exceptional arrangement, through which an enormous private sector system is predominantly publicly funded, has fuelled the staking of claims for funding other private schools.

Australia now has the biggest private school sector in the world. How did this happen? In the colonial era all schools were equally funded, according to denominational affiliation. At a time before universally available public education became the norm, such schools also reflected the differentiated class interests of society: in effect schools for the rich and others or none for the poor.

Mary McKillop’s missionary zeal in founding schools for the poor reflects a time, long passed, in which only the wealthier non-Catholic Churches managed to maintain their schools without state aid. The main exception to this rule was the Catholic Church, which imported thousands of religious women and men to operate a school system relatively accessible to all.

Since the Second World War, a decline in religious vocations, coupled with a dramatic increase in Australia’s population, brought pressure on Australian political parties to overturn the ban on state aid to private schools.

Leading the charge was the Catholic Church, which, through the Democratic Labor Party, drove a split in the ALP to influence its supporters to cast their second preferences for the Coalition parties. These had a more conciliatory attitude to the funding of private schools.

The Whitlam Government (1972–1975) broke the stranglehold of the Coalition on this question by agreeing to fund all non-government schools on the basis of need, resolving a sectarian and ideological divide in Australian society and politics lasting over a century.

Since the mid-1980s funding deregulation has imposed a different set of problems on Catholic schools. Their demographic shows that they have become cheap private schools and that lower socio-economic Catholic enrolments in them have plummeted.

Recent research by Michael Furtado shows that under a neoliberal funding policy Catholic schools are unable to match the services provided by government schools to meet poor children’s needs.

Catholics do not operate comprehensive schools through which their students are exposed to the entire curriculum that is available in a government school. Their parent organisations are closely controlled by school providers, whose preoccupation is to ensure existing funding policy, even at the cost of locking low-income students out, other than as a matter of exceptional and charitable dispensation.

Such issues have been resolved elsewhere through various modes of integrating Catholic schools within the public sector, as in New Zealand since 1974 and in the UK from 1944. Those who control Catholic education in Australia have vigorously resisted this proposal as a threat to the ethos of Catholic schools.

Yet evidence from other countries does not support such a view: there has been no noticeable dilution of religious ethos where Catholic schools are fully funded by the state and there is no correlation between Catholic school attendance and Catholic faith practice in Australia.

As a result of the Catholic precedent, state aid to private schools has resulted in a class-differentiated school system, with poor children disproportionately enrolled in state schools. In effect, Catholic schools, intended first and foremost for the poor, have become the instrument through which millions of tax dollars are siphoned off public schools and given to the private sector.

The ALP is now committed to funding all schools, public and private, on the basis of the socio-economic status of their enrolled students as broken down by home address. This is an indelible indicator of private wealth or poverty. The funding dollar will flow to schools that enrol learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A golden opportunity faces the Rudd Government and the Church, concerned about the loss of poor students in Catholic schools, to offer an authentic choice to parents to access a broad range of equally accessible schools that are equally paid for by the state.

If the Catholic Church fails to engage Labor’s ‘education revolution’ on this proposal, its commitment to the Gospel of social justice will be in ruins.

Ross Fitzgerald is Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University and Professorial Fellow of the Australian Catholic University. He has authored 31 books. His latest, Under the Influence: A history of alcohol in Australia will be published soon.

Eureka Street, August 24, 2009

Even rabidly religious America eschews this practice, since state aid to religious schools is constitutionally forbidden. The fact is that Catholic school provision in many English-speaking countries is largely a matter of public educational provision, a product of the Reformation settlement, which favoured an established Church that placed its stamp over public education. As a result, the significant Catholic minority staked claims to a share of the public purse proportionate to the size of its membership to help maintain its schools and, to a certain degree, to propagate the faith.

This public funding of Catholic schools isn’t an issue in countries with overwhelming Catholic populations where the religious education of children is part of the culture. Some exceptions to this apply in countries in which revolutionary, nationalist, secular and anticlerical influences have challenged the position of the Church as the sole arbiter of public morality. Yet even then Catholic schools are public schools and access to them is mainly free. Conversely, the only countries in which Catholic schools are private and fee-charging are those, such as in Scandinavia, in which Catholics constitute a negligible minority, except in Australia where Catholics make up 27 per cent of the population.

Australian Catholic school funding is a complex work in progress. Although socially liberal and generally regarded as serving a public function similar to state schools, Australian Catholic schools are virtually uniquely private sector schools, drawing from the Commonwealth and the states and territories funds without which they would be unsustainable. The remainder of their resources come from low-fee imposts, with the exception of a minority of schools owned by Catholic religious orders. These schools have a demographic profile similar to non-Catholic schools and charge their clients substantially more.

This exceptional arrangement, through which an enormous private sector system is predominantly publicly funded, had fuelled the staking of claims for funding other private schools. Australia now has the biggest private school sector in the world.

How did this happen? In the colonial era all schools were equally funded, according to the denominational affiliations of the Australian population. At a time before universally available public education became the norm, such schools reflected the differentiated class interests of society: in effect schools for the rich and others for the poor.

The Josephite nun Mary McKillop’s missionary zeal in founding schools for the poor therefore reflects a time, long passed, in which only the wealthier Anglican and Protestant Churches managed to maintain their schools without state aid, once the tap was turned off in the run-up to Australia’s federation in 1901. The main exception to this rule was the Catholic Church, which imported thousands of nuns, priests and brothers to operate a school system relatively accessible to all. Thus a major characteristic of Catholic schools is their social differentiation, reflecting a time when religious orders operated schools as charitable and philanthropic arrangements through which the better off schools supported the poor ones.

Since the second world war the shortfall in religious vocations, coupled with a dramatic increase in Australia’s population, brought pressure on various political parties to overturn the ban on state aid to private schools. Leading the charge was the Catholic Church, which, through the DLP (Democratic Labor Party) drove a split in the Labor party to influence its supporters to cast their second preferences for the Coalition parties, which had a more conciliatory attitude to the funding of non-state schools.

The ALP government of Gough Whitlam (1972-1975) broke the stranglehold of the Coalition parties and their DLP allies on this question by agreeing to fund all non-government schools on the basis of need, resolving a long-standing sectarian and ideological divide in Australian society and politics.

In recent years the rise of the markets and the application of neoliberal theory to all aspects of government policy has imposed a different set of problems on Catholic schools. In effect their demographic shows that they are fast becoming cheap private schools and that lower socio-economic Catholics and others, very much the primary target of Catholic schools, have disappeared. Recent research (by Michael Furtado and others) shows that under a neoliberal funding policy regime Catholic education lacks the resources to ensure levels of access and social inclusion equivalent to public sector schools.

Moreover Catholics do not operate comprehensive schools through which their students are exposed to the entire curriculum that is available in a government school. Parent organisations in Catholic schools are controlled by Catholic school providers, whose major purpose is to ensure that no issue should disturb the sacred alliance between parents and schools, even at the cost of locking low-income Catholics and others out of them.

Catholic school access issues have been resolved in other countries through various modes of integrating Catholic schools within the public sector, as for instance in New Zealand since 1974 through an Act of Integration, and in the UK from 1944, whereby Catholic schools have remained open to all. Those who control the existing structures of Catholic school provision in Australia have resisted this transition as a risk to the ethos of Catholic schools. Yet the evidence from other countries does not support such a view: there has been no evident dilution of a religious ethos where Catholic schools are fully funded by the state and, indeed, there is no correlation between Catholic school attendance and Catholic faith practice in Australia.

As a result of what was predominantly a Catholic school-funding dispensation in the 1970s, Australia now has the largest publicly funded private school sector on the planet, which has taken advantage of the Catholic exception to draw public funds to generate what is increasingly a class-based, public versus private system, with dire consequences for lower income families who are disproportionately enrolled in state schools. In effect, Catholic schools which were originally intended ‘first and foremost’, as Church teaching proclaims, ‘for the poor’, have become the instrument through which millions of dollars in public revenue have been siphoned off public schools and given to the private sector.

What are the prospects of correcting this anomaly? The ALP is committed in the long term to pursuing a policy of funding all schools, public and private, on the basis of the socio-economic status of their enrolled students as broken down by home address, which is an indelible indicator of private wealth or poverty. This means that state schools that restrict entry to those who can afford to buy into their catchment will lose some funding unless they become more inclusive, while private schools that restrict enrolment to those who pay high fees will also lose some funding. Conversely, the funding dollar will flow to schools that enrol learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A golden opportunity now faces Catholic and other schools concerned about the role of social justice in their enterprise, not simply by creating opportunities within the curriculum to expose their students to problems of social injustice, but by making their schools genuinely available to all who wish to access them. This will offer an authentic choice to parents to access a broad range of schools that are substantially, and appropriately, paid for by the state, instead of perpetuating an outdated public versus private school funding debate. It is time, surely, to engage with such a far-sighted vision.

Spectator Australia, August 14 2009

But increasingly concerns are growing in the education sector that she may be out of her depth when it comes to delivering in her very large portfolio areas. On last week’s Q&A program on ABC1, in which she was up against Malcolm Turnbull and three young political activists from across the spectrum, her most problematic political failing was on display. She is all style and very little substance. Long on rhetoric, but short on delivery.All foam, no beer.

Am I going too far with the cliches? If there is any politician who deserves to be described in cliches, it is Gillard. She has added more to the cliche lexicon than to the education system.

They all got a run on Thursday night, starting with the biggest cliche of them all: the education revolution. As climate change activist Sara Haghdoosti pointed out, a revolution implies “seismic, enormous change. This isn’t it”. Quite right. Most of the education revolution has involved nothing more than the abolition of old programs and their reintroduction with new names.

Hence the Howard government’s $700 tuition voucher program for students who fail to meet national benchmarks in their literacy and numeracy tests was cancelled, and that money was instead spent on the National Partnership on Literacy and Numeracy. Rather than giving the money to parents, Gillard is giving the money to state governments. Apparently she feels they are better at managing it. As someone who has been observing the Queensland and NSW education departments for some time this is a remarkable leap of faith.

The members of Q&A’s panel also took umbrage at Gillard’s Youth Allowance changes giving extra so-called scholarships to everyone who is getting Youth Allowance, at the expense of 30,000 students (mainly from the country) who work for a gap year to earn eligibility for Youth Allowance so they can afford to move to the city and go to university. As debating champion and aspirational Liberal Mitchell Grady said:

“Julia has seen an inequality and decided to try and solve it by creating another inequality in a different spot.”

The Building the Education Revolution program was brought up by the panel too, with Malcolm Turnbull renaming the spending as the Julia Gillard Memorial Halls. Most of the young people involved in the debate pointed out that if this much money was available for an education program, then it would have been much better to spend it on teachers.

The fact is that the Building the Education Revolution was never about education, it was about providing stimulus to the building industry. Unfortunately within months we have seen an outcry from principals, school communities, the building industry, the education union, the media, and just about every political party.

Problems include overspending, underspending, state skimming, profiteering, project managers getting millions for shuffling papers, schools with halls and gyms being forced to accept second halls and second gyms. There is very little value for money being delivered in the program.

Nor does it surprise that the Auditor-General has announced he will be conducting a full investigation into this spending, a humiliation for the Minister only three months into the delivery of her program. If it were anyone else on the Treasury benches in charge of this debacle, their career trajectory would be in serious freefall. If some of the Q & A panel were in the press gallery, we might see Gillard held to account.

Universities Australia (the “industry” peak body) appears content with the status quo under which chief executive authority rests with the vice-chancellor (increasingly also called the president), who is supposedly accountable to a council, senate or board of governors. Yet too often university councils and chancellors see their primary role as supporting their vice-chancellor, rather than objectively assessing the academic and fiscal functioning of the institution.

Recently Griffith University and its vice-chancellor, Ian O’Connor, were revealed by this newspaper approving secret monetary deals with the Saudi Government. These deals present a publicly funded and supposedly liberal Australian university as seemingly willing to give support to anti-liberal Islamist ideology, which discriminates against women and freedom of expression, in order to gain funding for the university’s Islamic Research Unit.

Griffith’s VC argues that such funding dollars are required to develop his university under the changed funding mix. The VC’s actions have not been effectively questioned by the chancellor, Leneen Forde – who is also vice-president of Scouts Australia and a former governor of Queensland – or by the university council, which she chairs. Yesterday Forde issued a press release totally supporting the VC’s actions.

Without the intervention of this newspaper, Griffith University’s attempted underhand deal with the Saudi Government may have evaded public scrutiny.

This is as important as the debate about effective governance of health professions. Griffith sponsored a conference on that topic but appears not to look at its own “system” with the same concern.

Another Queensland university seems to be in difficulty in the area of governance. Despite its difficult financial position, it is rumored that Central Queensland University is spending $5million on marketing, advertising and on rebranding.

At CQU, vice-chancellor and president John Rickard apparently reigns supreme. The university council continues to approve his salary as the second highest-paid VC in Queensland, without Rickard having an outstanding track record, of academic or administrative success. Indeed, the Australian Universities Quality Audit review was unhappy about CQU’s academic standards. Moreover CQU has experienced a dramatic decline in international student numbers following last year’s hunger strike by international students at its privatised Melbourne shop-front campus. In response, the university has painfully downsized its permanent and contract staff.

To make matters worse, CQU’s failure to consult employees or their representatives about the job losses was ruled by the Federal Court of Australia this month to be a serious failure of senior management that led to a breach of the university’s collective agreement. The CQU council response has not been to censure the vice-chancellor and his senior management team but to change the university’s name and logo, despite the fact research shows little evidence that university rebranding can positively affect university rankings and increase either student numbers or the recruitment of high-quality staff.

The generously paid marketing consultants wanted to rebrand CQU as either Central University Queensland or, even better, as Central University Australia, in part due to the resonance of the term “central” in China and elsewhere in Asia. This may give the impression that the university is Queensland’s, or Australia’s, main higher-education facility. Rickard’s team was rumoured to have rejected this because they knew they would need to change the university charter and would not get approval for this change from the state Government, and may even expose the university to charges of misleading advertising.

During the past five years, CQU has done little advertising. Since 2002, in addition to a huge loss of international students, it has experienced a decline of more than 1500 domestic student enrolments.

Insiders say the state and federal governments are planning to conduct a viability audit of the university’s finances.

It is time for an overloaded Julia Gillard to implement a radical Rudd Government higher education policy that supports academic freedom but which does not license publicly funded universities to behave as if they had been privatised.

This quasi-privatisation, one of the Howard legacies, has produced the absurd situation of Australian universities competing against each other for students and for international funding, whatever the cost to Australia’s reputation. A primary task for government is to provide our universities with a contemporary framework of governance so they can take a leading role in building and maintaining intellectual advancement and social capital, as well as the professional skills base Australia so urgently needs.