The project on channel ten, programmed every
night, produced an account discussing the increase privatization of schools in
Australia. The ‘Education Exodus’ explores the ideas around the changing from government
schools to private schools. The aim of this segment was to portray the reasons
for such high demand for private schools as well as the dramatic decrease in government
schooling. Currently, sixty-five percent of students are attending public
schools in Australia, but the numbers continue to decrease annually. The
privatization of schools emerged from the Whitlam era and is now seen to be
inevitable to revert.
Michelle Green (Chief executive independent
schools of Victoria) states:
‘Choice is something people should have, have rights
to choose the best education for their child’
Parents believe providing students with the
best source of education will increase their standard of living in the future
as well as success. The Fifth Bracey Report (October 1995), Money magazine, ended
with a survey stating private education is typically not worth the capital[1].
Privatization of education has built the stereotype of achieving higher results
by the exposure of richer sources of education. This is proven to be a
correlation, this is shown through the ‘Myschool website’ showing public
schools do achieve higher results than privatized schools.
The top few schools are public schools.
Michelle Green continues to state ‘you pay
for what you get’. This is why parents are compelled to spend a substantial
amount to provide the best education possible. With the identity of a school
and the ‘Myschool website’ parents have overtly become consumers, ‘shopping’
for the best school. This has made pedagogy a commodity in society.
A major contributing reason why
parents are converting from public to private education is because of the distinct
funding system. Private schools receive an enormous amount of income from the
government, with private schooling being subsidized 57.2 percent by the
government and 94.1 percent provided for public schooling. This is a major
reason why parents are choosing private schools resulting in the increase of demand.
As well as the funding system, Toma ́ sˇek, Strakova and Palecˇkova ́ (1997) suggests that public schools
place high emphasis on memorizing content as private promotes creative thinking[2]. This is
another contributing factor that may lead to the choice of switching to private
education.
Private schooling does not necessarily
bring forth disadvantages for the government. If all parents were to place their
child into a government-funded school, it will place much pressure on the
government. The demands for more infrastructure and inadequate funding will
lead to many ethical issues in education (e.g. insufficient resources for
students).
Another boundary placing pressure on
society is the gap between rich people and lower class citizens. Bracey, G, W.
(1998) supports this idea by implying those who do send their children to
private schools tend to be wealthier and better educated compared to those who
don’t[3].
If parents can afford private education they will provide their children with
the best education and neglect the government system, leaving low economic
students in the public education. Therefore the families without choice are at
stake, creating a division between the rich people and working class society. Consequently,
the increase of privatization has its flaws of increasing the gap between the
rich and poor but at the same time places less pressure on our public education
system.
[1] Bracey, Gerald W. Phi Delta Kappan
79.8
(Apr 1998): About those private school achievements, Volume (79), pp. 629-630.
[2] Toma ́sˇek , V. , Jana ,S . ,& Jana, P
.(1997 ). Trˇetı ́ mezina ́rodnı ́ vy ́zkum matematicke ́ ho a prˇı ́rodoveˇdneńho vzdeˇla ́va ́ni. [TIMSS international rankings of education in mathematics
and the natural sciences]. Prague: UIV.
[3]
Bracey, Gerald W. Phi
Delta Kappan79.8 (Apr
1998): About those private school achievements, Volume (79), pp. 629-630.
References:
http://theprojecttv.com.au/video.htm?vid=2648094029001
http://www.myschool.edu.au/
No comments:
Post a Comment