Education Policy
EDUCATION IN CAPITALIST AUSTRALIA
Education in modern capitalist Australia is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold in an education market. It is not about helping students to learn, growing as a person or contributing to the welfare of society. Instead, at all levels from pre-K to tertiary education, it is about generating profit for private education providers and leaving society with the bill.
The education system is the site of a massive redistribution of wealth from the working class to the capitalist class. Between 2018 and 2019, public schools lost almost $1.9 billion in funding and received zero federal capital funds. Meanwhile, private schools received $1.9 billion in capital funds for the same period. Public schools are starved of funds and allowed to fall apart while private schools receive generous federal funding.
Government policy is actively fostering an “education marketplace” through measures such as defunding the public education system, propping up for-profit private competitors and through school league tables that encourage parents to “shop around” for the “best” school. As schools are forced to compete for students in the education marketplace, NAPLAN scores become a major benchmark that parents use to judge which school to send their children to, so teachers are forced to teach to the test and assessed based on NAPLAN scores rather than their students’ actual learning progress. This is just one example of how capitalism’s market solutions harm society while enriching the few.
The rights of teachers, administrators and other staff within the education system are also under attack as cash-strapped public schools and profit-driven private schools slash wages, conditions and jobs. Staff cuts mean remaining staff are expected to shoulder heavier burdens, leading to a reduced quality of work. Precarious casual contracts with worse conditions are replacing the relatively stable employment and conditions that previous generations of education workers fought for.
Education under capitalism is also a process of indoctrinating students with bourgeoisie ideology. Students are taught that the system they live under is natural and that there is no better alternative. The history of working class struggle in Australia is ignored in favour of a pro-capitalist narrative, while high school modern history classes spread anti-communist myths about the former-socialist countries.
WHAT THE ACP STANDS FOR
The Australian Communist Party aims to put an end to the current practice of treating education as a commodity. We seek an education system that is free, universal, and secular. This system should teach young people the values needed for a socialist society such as collectivism and solidarity. To this end, we propose the following immediate steps:
Phase out tuition fees at all public schools, TAFEs and universities.
Increase government funding for public schools, TAFEs and universities.
Phase out government funding for private schools.
Abolish the MySchool website and other services that provide “league tables” of schools.
Re-introduce compulsory student union fees.
Stronger emphasis in school curricula on collective values such as solidarity.
Provide government supported apprenticeships.
Abolish government funding for chaplains at public schools and replace with funding for accredited counsellors.
For us, this is only the beginning. While education remains in the hands of a capitalist state, it will remain a tool of ruling class power. When the working class takes political power into its own hands, the ACP will revolutionise Australia’s education in some of the following ways:
Increase primary and secondary student opportunities for collective activity and develop their ability to independently organise as collectives (i.e. meaningful student self-government).
Introduce elements of productive labour into school hours to teach students useful practical skills and develop their working class consciousness.
Remove exploitative ideologies from school curricula.
Increase the availability of government-funded extra curricula activities such as school camps and excursions.
Provide more opportunities for students to contribute to society through volunteering.