Is the public losing interest in education reform?
The front page story on school funding and the Government’s BER allocation program in the Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney Morning Herald, 2010) would, on face value, be expected to attract community attention and create public comment.
Right? Wrong.
A search of letters and online critics revealed no substantive public interest on an issue that in the past has raised a plethora of community response.
Is there a reason for such disinterest?
Is there a correlation between this apparent disconnect and a disengagement with the government over its school funding programs?
Is the public simply becoming tired or bored - or both - with revelations that government-based funding programs are essentially flawed?
Has the unprincipled speed with which government has sought to implement change – witness the inevitable delays associated with the $14 billion BER program and the managerial fiasco being progressively portrayed with its $2.5 billion fast-tracked home insulation roll-out – led to a deepening cynicism about Canberra-managed project initiatives?
Does the issue of value for money ever count for a government apparently flush with funds and willing to expedite programs whose managerial infrastructures are themselves deeply flawed?
Can public inactivity regarding major education issues foreshadow that families will simply lose interest in the government’s much vaunted MySchool website and simply not visit the site?
A consequence of declining site hits could indicate that the initial euphoria of publishing NAPLAN results will become submerged under the weight of more pressing community issues.
Keeping a job and making household ends meet may have more immediate parental impact than knowing your child’s school at Maroubra compares unfavourably with Mooney Ponds primary.
The Government will constantly claim continuing success for MySchool although it appears inevitable that site access will dramatically downturn over the coming months as predicted by its developers following the site’s launch in late January.
The government will be loath to reveal declining ‘hit’ statistics.
After spending whatever it did to have the website designed, developed and implemented the Education Minister is hardly going to reveal any future paucity of public use.
Despite the government’s quest for modernity by assembling valuable statistical data will the website actually deliver better educational outcomes for the majority of Australian school children?
Is the government merely intent on being seen to be doing something when the site structure reveals inherent difficulties as shown by the flawed school comparisons in the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) cross school analysis?
School billions miss their target, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 February 2010, p1. www.smh.com.au
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