BY KATHY NEWNAM
ADELAIDE — At least 50 schools in the state are in a dire situation, with broken windows, leaking roofs, inadequate space and determined neglect by the education department, according to a new investigation into South Australia's education system.
According to a "special report" in the August 13 Advertiser, entitled "The state of our education", cutbacks to the education budget by successive governments have seen a fall in total teacher numbers (full- and part-time combined) from 16,068 to 13,004, leading to a continuing increase in class sizes.
There are also more teachers being taken on contracts rather than permanent positions, leading to increased instability and job insecurity.
This situation has led to low morale among teachers in the state, according to the Advertiser — a claim disputed by the president of the state branch of the Australian Education Union, John Gregory.
While recognising the high level of alienation from the political processes that impacts on their work, Gregory told Green Left Weekly of the remarkable resilience of teachers who have "endured more than 10 years of constant cutbacks".
Teachers may be oppressed, he commented, but "low morale? No".
Education minister Malcolm Buckby attempted to use the conclusion of the Advertiser's report to take a swipe at the AEU, telling the newspaper "suggestions of low morale are more likely to come from the AEU who seem determined to do everything possible to denigrate public education".
But while the report may have revealed problems in the education system, the "solutions" it publicised are no solution at all.
Graeden Horsell, president of the SA Association of State School Organisations, used his Advertiser column to applaud Partnerships 21 — an initiative of the state Liberal government which seeks to pass responsibility for public schools to families and communities.
"Having our schools run on parent power is perhaps the only effective way we, as a community, can fuel the challenges ahead", he wrote.
But Partnerships 21's real impact has been quite different, claims the teachers' union.
According to Gregory: "The 'public' has been removed and supplanted by some often genuine people who have no real control over anything in education."
The real situation, commented Gregory, is that "a bunch of faceless bureaucrats, acting under political direction, are making up new rules on the run, and putting the burden for their implementation back onto a paying public".
From the major political parties, there has come little more than politician-speak about "vision" and "community". In a "debate" between education minister Malcolm Buckby and opposition spokesperson Trish White, there was little aside from such rhetoric.
The ALP has promised to "review Partnerships 21 to focus on educational outcomes — not as a tool for controlling budgets and passing costs on to parents". Beyond this the extent of the ALP's promises is to freeze funding to four of the top private schools in SA — St Peters Boys School, Seymour College, Wilderness School and Scotch College — which are currently heading towards funding of between $1138-$1795 per student by 2004.
Gregory believes the report has exposed "some of the difficulties imposed on an essential social service by a succession of conservative governments, Labor and Liberal", and reflected the growing concern about the crisis in public education.
"We look forward", he concluded, "to a time when public sympathy and support gets translated into effective political action in favour of public education."