BY JOHN MORRIS
SYDNEY — With the commencement of the secondary school year, an imminent teachers' salaries and conditions dispute and school-support staffing levels in review, the lead-up to the NSW election on March 22 will be a period of volatility in the state education system.
School support staff had considered a three-day strike for the first week of January as part of their campaign for more staff, but instead agreed to a temporary increase of around 0.5 person days per school while the review is undertaken. The Public Service Association hopes the review will see a further rise in staff numbers.
Bob Carr has championed himself as the "education premier": funding school computers and visiting schools to teach his favourite subject, US Civil War history.
However, there is a lie behind the image. Schools have been given computer hardware and networks, but most believe this is too little, too late. A lack of trained computer personnel is most damning — schools are being forced to cobble together maintenance programs, using teachers as technicians or spending scarce funds on outside consultancies.
Carr's history obsession was one factor in the ditching of Higher School Certificate mathematics and English courses catering to lower achieving students. These students are now forced to struggle within classes aimed at university-bound students.
Last year's "Building the Future" plan to close 12 inner-city schools provoked a community backlash. Thousands of people participated in strikes, rallies, meetings and walk-outs. Labor had to back off, most schools were saved from closure and John Aquilina was ditched as education minister.
This issue prompted the Sydney Morning Herald to editorialise that the government's education department had breached freedom of information principles and that an inquiry should be conducted. Arrogantly, Labor has not just ignored this but has set out to build six new schools in Sydney's west using a private "fund, own and maintain" program. This means NSW taxpayers will have to rent our schools back!
Discussion about smaller class sizes and increased pay and conditions for teachers was pushed to the foreground in 2001 by the NSW Teachers Federation. Education minister John Watkins initiated a trial of smaller class sizes as a stalling tactic. Yet, there is already an overwhelming body of international data showing improved education outcomes from smaller class sizes.
Carr wants to avoid the cost of smaller class sizes even though NSW has the largest primary school class sizes of any Australian state . Liberal Leader John Brogden has promised to reduce class sizes funded by "system improvements" — most likely speed-ups and job losses for support staff: exacerbating their current staffing crisis.
It is more than likely that Carr will hold out on negotiations around teachers' salaries, attempting to delay industrial action until after the election.
Even left-aligned members of Carr's cabinet say that there is only so much money to go around. They say that largely the state government relies on federal funds, especially the GST, to fund public services. Yet the federal government has been able to raise defence spending by $80 billion since last July and has raised its spending on private schools by one third, or $1.5 billion.
Federal and state Labor should point out that even a fraction of the war spending would see billions going into public hospitals and schools.
This is why supporters of public education should remain opposed to the war on Iraq, even with the guise of UN approval, and opposed to Carr's $300 million waste on terrorism squads and crime scaremongering.
This state election poses a stark question — do we fund public schools and hospitals or prisons and war? The answer: vote for the Socialist Alliance and come to the public education rally at Town Hall at 5pm on February 19.
[John Morris is a legislative council candidate for the Socialist Alliance in the NSW state election. For more information on the campaign, visit < http:\\www.socialist-A HREF="mailto:alliance.org"><alliance.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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