A tale of two sectors
Charles Dickens’s famous 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities examines the social injustices meted out to the French peasantry under the tyranny of the French aristocracy with corresponding brutality administered against their former masters during the French Revolution of the 1770s and 1780s.
Parallel life in London was similarly socially bifurcated and equally brutal, a reality personally known to Dickens who worked in appalling labour conditions as a child.
Dickens’s novel addresses the British aristocracy to ensure the revolution which traumatised France would not be repeated in Britain.
Dickens’s sympathies lay with the poor but his admonition and entreaties identified him with the rich.
Such duality continues to be expressed in media reporting of educational need within the Rudd Government’s own revolution affecting schools.
Education commentators continue to crisscross the social divide by maintaining public sector schools or severely disadvantaged institutions – often in the Northern Territory – are losing funding to the rapacious, elite private schools in the eastern states.
A recent article in The Australian (The Australian, 2010) perpetuates these funding allocation alternatives.
Rich, well endowed ACT schools – one of which happens to be attended by the Prime Minister’s son, whatever innuendo is implied by such unnecessary gossip – are receiving federal funding to sustain their literacy and numeracy standards while some NT schools – with ‘a third of its students at or below the reading benchmark in the NAPLAN tests last year’ - received no funding.
These comments imply that well endowed independent schools are somehow reaping financial and educational benefits at the expense of more marginalised public institutions and students.
Any misaligned funding allocation needs to be addressed by the government, not the respective education sector beneficiaries.
To couch media commentary in terms of a ‘them/us’ divide using the contentious 'rich, elite, wealthy' epithets has nothing to do with efficacy within independent schools but everything to do with the comparative responsiveness from each respective school sector.
While the British aristocracy was challenged to heed Dickens’s warnings of peasant unrest that erupted in the French Revolution today’s education commentators need to more appropriately address system considerations which influence inadequate funding to schools.
The media has long been critical of ‘rich, well endowed’ schools receiving rapid approval for BER funding grants. Reports have stated that sometimes local council ordinances have been bipassed in the rush to gain almost overnight development approval.
By contrast delays and inconsistencies seemed to plague many public schools in their quest for infrastructure funding or to gain agreement on capital works projects.
The reason behind this timing contrast rests with the comparative organisational efficiencies of each sector.
Many independent schools would have developed long range project plans that could be quickly modified to meet required federal funding guidelines.
Such forward planning is an elementary function of any independently managed business or organisation.
Unless a school constantly reviews its forward projects it cannot adequately plan strategic development and organise the myriad of consequences emanating from such developments.
These elements include staffing, student enrolments, site management, perhaps temporary classroom accommodation, facility co-ordination and importantly the many questions associated with financing new school infrastructure such as fund raising or capital appeals to school stakeholders.
Throughout the BER program the media quickly highlighted the apparent inadequacies associated with public school project planning.
In its rush to expedite this campaign - similarities with the house insulation rollout are inevitable - the government can be severely reprimanded in certain instances. Criticising schools, however, is often misguided.
Why would a public school resource forward infrastructure and development planning when the likelihood of any immediate construction was dependent on state governments which in the past had shown scant interest in financing school capital improvements?
Clearly such schools faced more immediate operating priorities than planning refurbishment projects that in the past would never eventuate.
In administering the roll out of numerous education programs – the computer in schools plan, BER and primary school P21 funding, etc - the federal government placed inordinate faith in administrative systems at state level to quickly initiate federal project development strategies.
As has been dramatically portrayed with the Government’s housing insulation program and other health and support medical initiatives the desire to implement change quickly has been thwarted by inherent administrative deficiencies.
The headlong rush for change has been paralleled by inadequate planning, poor pre- programming of administrative support and deficiencies in project management controls and ineffectual cost maintenance.
More appropriate media comment should focus on overcoming implementation shortfalls involving genuinely intentioned funding allocations.
Continually positioning school funding as driving division between the public school sector – the French peasantry - and the independent school sector – the French aristocracy - will achieve little social harmony in the current revolution being waged by the Rudd Government.
Neediest schools miss out to elites. The Australian, 11 March 2010, p 1. www.theaustralian.com.au
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