MichaelK., We might be living in a land full of racists but the racists here in Australia are very generous with their money (welfare) and when there is money there is always abuse.

Just because I believe that Australia is multicultural enough to remove the labels and value us all equally it doesn't make me a rascist.

SHONGA said “The rodent has $10 billion in budget surplus, why don't you tories urge him to spend some of it on improving education.”

Ignorant rodents like you SHONGA should engage their brain before posting! It’s the states who are in charge of education not John Howard! He gives them more then enough but they just piss it up the wall. The only thing that needs changing about education is the amount teachers are paid. We should be giving teachers financial incentives to work hard at improving the student’s grades and with the higher pay encouraging more highly qualified people to take up a career in teaching

Yeah, Jolanda, I have read and so you could read “Friendliest Racist Nation” in The Age, appeared days after my posts.

And I must not be blamed for any if any, abuse of “generous” handovers: this is what a system pays to have her bureaucrats functioning, the privileged employed and receiving the loyalties to get more and more. It takes in migrants, it pays, so the system is running well.

I am finding your whole NESB discussion confusing. Education systems throughout the country provide additional funding to schools for students who have come from non-English speaking countries so that they may catch up with native speakers. In Victoria, students who have been here five years or fewer are funded for English as a Second Language teachers. There is a sliding scale that provides more funding for those who have spent the least amount of time here. In addition, there are language centres outside of mainstream schools to get those with no English started. This expenditure of more money on some students is fair to give them the same chance as other students.

There is also additional funding for schools with larger numbers of students from poorer backgrounds, irrespective of their language skills. This is also fair as a way of compensating for a more difficult start in life that some students have had.

Whether the amount allocated to these purposes is sufficient is another question. Even ignoring special needs, the basic funding formula for schools is too low, leaving the state more than 2,000 secondary teachers below the number that the pupil-teacher ratio of 10.9:1 provided 25 years ago.

Outcomes based education needs more inputs if students are to have a good chance of actually learning.

Chris C,

Thank you for clarifications. It seems, what is really confusing for NATIVE speakers is understanding how "generous" system works de facto: people from around a globe have been lured with Australian opportunities to find themselves in a trap of a poverty upon generations as employment is for Anglo-Saxon mates only and some manual jobs throughout “family relations” for ethnics/NESB. Therefore, provided perpetually funding for so called NESB ended up in pockets of mates privileged to be employed for providing “services” - teaching or simply policing by JobNet/Centrelink, in exchange for their pro-royal votes.

In Australia, recent racist tautology called “Citizenship is not application only” or something, dealing with naturalization, is a next stage of legitimisation of modern slavery based on biological origin.

Look at the Arab States and take their approaches to working slaves as a background for such Australian local “democratic developments.” Regrettably, Islamic feudals seem to be more honest on this issue particularly.

There is a difference between NESB students and ESL (English as a second language)students.

I agree that ESL students need alot of support and help but why should an NESB student (Non Enlish speaking background) get priority just because a parent speaks another language at home. These students are the most over-represented in higher education and Selective Schools. They are not really disadvantaged by their parents speaking another language at home, it is actually beneficial. Even if they have only been learning English in Australia for 4 years, usually they also learnt it in thier own Country and there are many of them that are tutored extensively. I just cant see the disadvantage the NESB student have to warrant any priority. Of course ESL is another story.