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The Howard government treats education as a cost; not as an investment.
This explains why they’ve reduced the share of Federal funding for public schools and why Australia is the only OECD nation that has reduced its public investment in tertiary education in the past decade.
This is the wrong approach to education. We should be treating education as something to invest in, to provide future dividends for Australia, not as a cost to minimise.
To make our economy prosper beyond the resources boom will require us to become a clever country. This means positioning Australia as a competitive, innovative, knowledge-based economy that can compete and win in global markets.
Becoming a knowledge-based economy will give us the greatest potential for ongoing productivity growth; the source for long-term economic prosperity.
The only way to do this is by investing in our education system; increasing the resources of our schools to enable our children to become the smarter and more productive workers of tomorrow.
“OECD research shows that if the average level of education of the working-age population was increased by 1 year, the economy would be 3-6 per cent larger, and the growth rate of the economy would be up to 1 per cent higher.”
- OECD (2006) Education at a Glance 2006, p.157.
Given that public schools teach 67% of Australia’s students, we can’t become the clever country without increasing funding to our public schools.
A growing body of research shows that investment in education provides significant social and economic returns for economies as well as for individuals. Put simply, more educated economies are wealthier economies.
By investing in public education and becoming a wealthier economy means that we’ll increase our ability to reduce poverty, increase leisure, and adequately fund education, public health, environment and the arts.
In other words, investing in public education will make Australia a better country for all.
More information
For more information about this issue please go to the NSW Teachers Federation’s Public Education campaign website or contact the NSW Teachers Federation.
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