Education is key to the NSW election this Saturday. Student outcomes have been declining in NSW for years while the gap between rich and poor students grows. Callum Foote investigates Liberal and Labor party policy platforms as part of our MWM series on election issues.
The education gap between NSW’s most and least advantaged students is over five years, while the government struggles to attract new teachers to the job. Teachers are poorly paid. Yet there is no significant difference in education policy between the two parties, say the experts, to convince voters either way.
Student outcomes are foremost in the debate over education, yet sadly these outcomes have been going in the wrong direction for many years. According to Jordana Hunter, Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute “By the time students are in year nine in NSW, the gap in reading is more than five years and the numeracy gap is more than four years.”
This gap grows in primary and secondary school: “Our analysis shows that the learning gap between our most advantaged and our most disadvantaged students more than doubles between year three and year nine in reading and numeracy.”
As the NSW election looms this weekend, the Coalition’s major education policy is the promise of a year of free pre-kindergarten education for all four-year-olds in the state by 2030.
The big numbers
Included in the 2022 state budget, this measure is expected to cost $5.8 billion and see the creation of 500 new pre-schools across the state.
Earlier this month, Premier Dominic Perrottet decided to expedite the process, promising to spend $1 billion this year.
Labor’s early childhood education policy is modest in comparison, promising to build 100 new public pre-schools and upgrade a further 50.
According to Grattan Institute research, one-on-one teaching is the best mitigator of the education gap.
“Grattan’s view is that small group tutoring can be a highly effective strategy to help struggling students catch up to their classmates, particularly if struggling students are picked up early” says Jordana Hunter, Education Program Director.
The government has only committed to one additional year of small group tutoring, costing $250 million a year, for struggling students, while Labor has signalled that it would fund the program for four years.
In terms of overall education outcomes, “We know that the quality of teaching is the biggest in-school determinant of student outcome,” says Hunter.
“The level of professional development and guidance that teachers have impacts this quality.”
The Coalition will abolish two-year teaching masters and replace them with a single year course in the hopes of attracting more mid or late-career professionals to change to teaching. However, Grattan sees that on-the-job training has a significant impact on teaching quality.
Show me the money
“Grattan has called for expert teachers to be remunerated significantly more to stay connected to the classroom with a partial teaching load, while taking on responsibility for working closely with other teachers in their schools, through coaching, mentoring and other forms of professional development” says Hunter.
“Governments around Australia have committed to providing a world-class education system. Delivering on that promise is possible, but is hard work” says Hunter.
The Coalition has promised super salaries for 800 expert teachers across NSW, less than 1% of the profession, to keep high-quality teachers in the job.
Labor policy better for teachers’ pay
For its part, Labor has promised to remove the public service wages cap for teachers, permitting higher wages through negotiations.
Last June, thousands of teachers from public and Catholic schools converged on Sydney’s CBD and other locations around NSW in a historic joint strike over pay and conditions.
The organisers said the Perrottet government’s proposal of a 3% pay increase was “an insult”.
The NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos told MWM that “The choice for teachers this election is stark” with the union supporting Labor.
“It’s a choice between a government that has failed students, their parents and teachers, and opposition that is prepared to listen to the profession and invest in the profession,” Gavrielatos said.
“A re-elected Coalition government will see teachers face further real wage cuts and an ongoing salary cap, higher workloads and unqualified teachers in schools” he said. “Public schools will remain under-resourced and continue to suffer from the worst teacher shortage seen in living memory.”
The Coalition is offering 15,000 teachers and support staff permanent positions in 2023, while Labor is offering 10,000 teaching positions to be made permanent.
Our school is focus groups
In terms of funding, there is no promise to change funding models from either party. Save our Schools coordinator Trevor Cobbold says that “neither of the main parties are actually properly addressing the funding issue in New South Wales public schools.”
“Public Schools have been dudded by the New South Wales government over the last 10 years. Labour has promised only minor increases that are a far cry from what is needed” Cobbold says.
Currently, NSW is funding less than the Schooling Resource Standard level agreed to with the federal government. “New South Wales Government funding is at 71.8% of the public school Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). And this is compared and they have a formal target of 75% so the underfunding is 3.2% which amounts to a shortfall of about bit over $500 million” Cobbold says.
In terms of funding for Catholic and Independent schools, Cobbold says that “the New South Wales Government under the bilateral funding agreements is actually overfunding private schools, that is Catholic and independent schools together. Under the bilateral agreement, they are funding them at 23% of their SRS 2022 instead of the 20% target.”
Private schools sacrosanct for both parties
Both Labor and the Coalition are saying that they will not change current funding arrangements for private schools, which will see state funding to independent schools reduce year on year till 2029 to decrease the amount of funding to the 20% mark.
The majority of students not achieving numeracy and literacy benchmarks are in the public school system. “We get all these complaints about our results not improving, but if you’re not actually funding public schools to what they need, it’s not gonna get any better,” says Cobbold.
A spokesman for the Association of Independent Schools of NSW (AISNSW) told MWM that this election “both major parties have committed to maintaining present recurrent funding arrangements as they apply to non-government schools.”
The Coalition is lowering its commitments for building fund to independent schools. “On capital funding, the Coalition has committed $25 million to be divided among low-SES NSW Independent schools in 2023/24,” AISNSW said.
“This represents a halving of the average grant provided over the past four years. For context, one government primary school costs around $60 million to build. The Opposition has offered $60 million over three years for new and upgraded preschools at both Catholic and Independent schools. The Coalition said it would exceed Labor’s commitment in this area.”
Not majoring in … other stuff
Both parties are bringing smaller tweaks to the election. The Coalition is promising to look into flexible school hours and has appointed a chief behaviour officer while Labor is promising a blanket ban on mobile phones in public schools.
Both the Coalition and Labor are looking to boost the enrolments in selective schools, despite expert warnings that this increases the education gap, and have chosen different locations for new schools to be built which can be seen here and here respectively.
Both parties have committed to reducing teacher workload, averaging 150% of salaried hours. NSW Labor will commit $42.7 million towards upgrading and fitting out three new TAFE facilities offering courses like mechanical engineering and electrical fitting, free for 1000 students a year.
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Callum Foote was a reporter for Michael West Media for four years.