Science Education News (SEN) Journal 2017 Volume 66 Number 4 December 2017 | Page 37

ARTICLES
Australia’s Education Asset (continued)
One reason for this is that many children attending these schools
catch a bus every morning, returning home the same way in the
evening. The bus trips can take an hour each way for some young
scholars, and may even require them to walk to and from the
bus stop. The significant point: the proportion of such students
(and teachers) is generally highest in those seats right across
Australia held by the National Party. Although these schools are
most likely to lose a large proportion of their support funding
provided until now by the original Gonski model, not one National
Party Member of the House of Representatives or Senator chose
to protect their local schools by speaking out or voting against
the Prime Minister’s Gonski-2.0 scheme.
Barnaby Joyce
By contrast, many wealthy families choose to send their children
to boarding schools. This is their right and their choice, and
having taught at several such schools, I enjoyed the conditions
as well as most of these students, both their behaviour and
sense of purpose. However, since they live away from home they
are also regarded as being disadvantaged, despite numerous
advantages the schools provide, so consequently several of
even the most wealthy and luxurious of these schools are set
to receive an increase in funding. Is there no limit to the rising
inequality in Australia today?
The final point is my question for the Treasurer, Mr Morrison.
For a Government that continues to provide billions of dollars
annually to the fossil fuel industry, and has been desperate to
finance the railway in North Queensland for Adani by providing
$1Bn in taxpayers’ money in spite of the inevitable consequences
for climate change, why would that same’ Government cut
$22Bn from the ‘export’ that not only provides Australia with its
third-highest GDP, but is capable of improving the educational
standard of Australian children, right across this continent?
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 66 NO 4