Media Release – Friday 26 August 2011
The Minister for Education, Peter Garrett needs to explain what he is hiding when five paragraphs of a speech on school funding given to a principals’ conference were deleted from his Ministerial website.
On Monday night Minister Garrett addressed the National Lutheran Principals’ Conference and gave an apparently misleading example about the funding of two non-government schools, saying:
“For example, non-government schools with funding maintained status get $2000 more per student from the Commonwealth than SES-funded schools with similar student mixes – $4 393 per annum compared with just $2 393 per annum.
Or take two non-government primary schools in Sydney, with students from similar backgrounds and in the same school system.
The first, which is funding maintained, gets $13 000 per student each year from the Commonwealth, the other just $8 000.
Multiply that by 200 students and that’s a difference of an additional million dollars extra each year per school.
I could go on. But my point is obvious.”
The IEU Federal Secretary, Mr Chris Watt said this “obvious” example has been removed from the official record on Minister Garrett’s website and all Australian schools are entitled to know why.
“At face value it appears the example used by Minister Garrett was misleading and unfairly targeted schools which do important work with disadvantaged students,” said Mr Watt.
“It is apparent that the Minister was referring to a school which caters for disadvantaged students, as they are the only non-government schools which receive the amount mentioned by the Minister in this week’s speech.
“The funding of our schools is too important to be used to make these kind of political points.
“Schools communities are concerned that the Minister is trying to soften the Catholic and non-government schools for a cut in their funding,” said Mr Watt.
Media Contact: Evan Langdon – 0429 020 409