IN making financial donations to political parties, which group is more likely to make donations?

Private school parents or public school parents?

Just look and see how the changes John Howard made to superannuation benefited the rich and made no difference to low to middle income earners.

There are some crazy ideas around with regards to education, like on the one hand we have our PM, who's baby has always been education, wanting to implement what can only be described as a 'pipe dream' (due to lack of money), while on the other hand we now have schools offering home work as 'optional' only.

Crazy stuff!

As for TAFE colleges, in my opinion they have never really been little more than an extension of school.

Furthermore, many teachers are out of touch with industry trends, as trends tend to change and there is no one there to teach the teacher so as to say.

Alternatively, we have every form of acadminia within our banking system, so would it not be more practical to subsidize wages for these students, so they can train and learn in real time situations.

Likewise there are many industries that crave for budding trades people, but one day per week/ month is more of a disruption than a benefit to many employers.

However, at the end of the day, education is the responsibility of responsible parents, but if they send their kids off to school/clolledge, excepting them to be well educated, then perhaps our education dollars would be better channelled at educating the parents in how to assist their chidrens learning, rather than the students.

I agree with the author in that TAFE must continue to be financially supported by the Government if we are not to see only the wealthy able to afford higher education.

My brother was only able to attend University to study Electrical Engineering in the late 70's because his fees were paid by the Government at the time. My father had just left my mother and didn't pay any maintenance, so she struggled to support my brother while he was at Uni.
He did extremely well at State High Schools and passed University with honors . He went on to have a lucrative career .

Someone in his situation today could not afford Uni or TAFE fees unless he had a scholarship of some kind.
Australia is no doubt missing out on some very talented people from lower-socioeconomic families who can't afford the exorbitant school/ Uni fees of today.

Rehctub I don't believe all TAFEs are as bad as you suggest.

Yes sure some of them have become little fiefdoms, run for & by the staff for the benefit of themselves & no one else, but that is not the majority.

A friend of ours is a TAFE math teacher. He says it is the best job on earth. Not because in is not work, but because of his students.

He has taught math in high school, where the impediments in the system, & disinterested students made the job hell he reckoned. In TAFE on the other hand, he has kids, & some not so young, who did not get the math they should have at school.

Now wanting to obtain a trade, which requires higher math than the rubbish that is "Business Maths" in our schools, he has motivated students serious about learning his subject. He is annoyed that our high schools do such a dreadful job, but happy to be able to help those our schools have failed.

Most of the older builders, & electricians left school, & started their trade at 15, with just the intermediate certificate. It is a major indictment of the current system that these had all the math to complete their trade studies, but todays kids, at 17, with a matriculation certificate, have to undertake remedial math, or can not handle the course.

Perhaps we should be saying thank god for our TAFE system, & the in school apprentice scheme, which is showing up some of these short comings.

Yes, the attack on TAFE is clearly a continuation of the decision to fund private school education but the argument that ties this to Chomsky's claims about protecting class privilege need to take into consideration that it was decisions by Labour Governments in Victoria and Federally which allowed this situation to get out of hand.

Obviously both sides of politics in Australia has come to the conclusion that education has better outcomes when it is provided by private providers. That argument needs to be strongly opposed because the evidence just is not there to support it.

Not only have TAFE education and employment outcomes been very good but also up until the past couple of years public school students were doing very well at University even though their scores going in were lower than private school students (this can be explained in terms of private school teachers predominantly teaching specifically for exam results).

The main thrust of the article seems generally sound (IMHO). The decimation of TAFE by state governments is a short sighted and short term fix to a longer term problem (structural issues and finance), but I don't necessarily agree that it's all bad to open up VET and similar courses to private providers. There's likely a balance that could result in a vastly improved system. It's a shame though that the article has 'class warrior' written all over it. Diminishes it somewhat.

However, the author really needs to do some homework in relation to school funding, eg. "disproportionate funding to private schools was a measure designed to maintain the class system through denying the government school sector funds it desperately required" ?? Really?? Puhleeze.

Less class warrior hyperbole (and outright misinformation) and more facts please. First and foremost, funding to schools is not a zero sum game. Funding to non-government schools DOES NOT equate to "denying" funds to government schools, the author would do well to improve her understanding of how school funding actually works, particularly the fact that different tiers of government have different funding responsibilities in relation to schools.

She also makes the error (if that's what it actually was - it's more often a deliberate attempt by government school advocates (or, more accurately, anti-private school lobbyists) to mislead) of only quoting Federal funding for schools, ignoring the reality that state governments are the primary source of funding for government schools. In addition, non-government schools are funded on a per student basis and still receive a proportion only of what government schools receive per student.

Aside from such glaring errors and the obvious class warrior approach by the author to, well, everything, and the rest of the article isn't soooo bad...