CPA - The Guardian

The Rudd Labor government talks in terms of “education revolution” and “a redesign of our health system.” It is now becoming clearer that this terminology is no exaggeration. Radical changes in the funding and provision of health services and education are under way. The vehicle for these changes is the introduction of vouchers.

When it comes to education and health care policy, government reforms have always been argued in terms of equity and overcoming disadvantage. The proponents of the voucher system are no different. The final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC), released on July 31, argues this point for medical, hospital, dental and aged care and the government looks set to implement most of its recommendations. (See page 1.) A few weeks earlier, the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank based in Melbourne, issued a report calling on the government to adopt a voucher system for schools.

Under a voucher system the funding for education is attached to a student. Each student is entitled to a voucher worth a set amount of money. This could be the same for all students, or varied such has in the case of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The funding of schools no longer comes directly from government. All schools charge fees. The voucher can be used towards the payment of fees. A voucher may or may not be enough to cover the full fee, depending on the fees charged by the particular school.

The parent pays the gap between the fee and the value of the voucher, unless the student is lucky enough to have a scholarship or some other financial assistance. Schools can still raise additional income through corporate sponsorship, churches, parent and citizen fund-raising, endowments, etc.

The differences between public and private schools are blurred. State schools are given greater autonomy to hire and fire staff, greater freedom to vary the curriculum to the demands of particular groups, can manage their own financial affairs, including maintenance and capital works programs. There may initially be restrictions on the fees that state schools can charge as the system is phased in.

The system is promoted as offering parents “choice”. They can shop around on a competitive education market to find the best available product within their budget. There are league tables from national testing programs, HSC results, etc, to enable parents to compare schools. Governments will no longer be responsible for or play a role in the provision of education. They will fund and indirectly purchase education products through individual students in the education market place.

Christian Kerr reporting in The Australian (20-07-2009) typically argues that “vouchers represent a powerful tool to tackle educational disadvantage. This is because parents of children with special education needs, or from low-income families, are financially empowered to take their children out of failing schools and into high-quality education institutions.”

In reality they are no more “empowered” than they ever were. These “high-quality education institutions” that they cannot afford to send their children to are the elite private schools, some with fees of more than $20,000 a year. They still will not afford the fees. The inequities will not only remain but become greater. The poor “failing schools”, a reference to run-down, under-funded state schools will remain just as under-funded and run-down while private schools receive larger subsidies.

Vouchers are a means of advancing the privatisation of education, and will facilitate the mushrooming of second-rate private and religious fundamentalist schools, just as the introduction of state aid for private schools did in the past. They divert funding from the public system which will be destroyed. They give funding to the richest private schools, to the non-secular schools and corporates that enter the market on the same basis as public schools.

Vouchers mean greater inequality and the eventual withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities for the provision of health and education to all Australians. Health and education are basic human rights, the responsibility of government. Both are being subjected to counter-revolution, not revolution. It is time for a real revolution, based on universally accessible, high quality, free health and education systems provided by government and funded through a progressive taxation system.

Next article – Democracy for sale – SOLD

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