Crusade or Revolution, Labor gets an F

Senate Estimates last week exposed the so-called ‘education crusade’ as a sham and also called into question many of Labor’s education commitments made at the last federal election according to the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne.

“Under questioning from the Coalition’s Senator Brett Mason, the Prime Minister’s commitment to school funding reform was shown to be a house of cards, with no draft legislation, no funding and no discussion with the states,” Mr Pyne said.

“However, a myriad of other programmes and policies were revealed to be in chaos,” he said.

• The Government is spending $60 million to develop a draft framework for teacher certification and performance that most schools already adhere to through existing practices.

• After two years the $18.1 million “Teach Next” programme has only managed to recruit 6 participants out of the 450 promised.

• After two years the $50 million “Online diagnostic tools initiative” which was meant to include resources for teachers, parents and online tests has no resources for parents or a single online test.

• Only 208 Trade Training Centres have been delivered out of the promised 2650.

• Contractors remain unpaid for their work under the BER school hall rip-off programme.

• Departmental officials confirmed that Labor’s $540 million literacy and numeracy programme has been found to have made no statistical difference in improving students results for schools that participated in the programme compared with those that didn’t.

• Labor has committed no more money to their Computers in Schools programme leaving the states to pick up the tab.

“Labor cannot be trusted to deliver in education. Their record is abysmal,” Mr Pyne said. 

 October 21, 2012