On September 3, 2005 the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, declaimed:

From 2005, the Australian Government is making it a condition of its general funding to State and Territory education authorities and non-government schools that all schools have a functioning flagpole, fly the Australian flag and display the poster Values for Australian Schooling. To help schools fly the Australian flag, the Australian government is providing up to $1,500 to assist with the installation of a flagpole where the schools has no functioning flagpole. Thus far, 2,042 primary and secondary schools across Australia have applied for funding under this initiative.

And today (May 30, 2007) the current Minister, Julie Bishop, proudly announced that more than 1,500 Australian schools have applied for funding under the Federal Government's $90 million chaplaincy program with three quarters of applications coming from state schools.

Just what the role of the chaplains is to be is not quite clear but we are told that once the Federal Government's code of conduct was released, stating that said chaplains should not preach religion, the concerns of the population were eased.

Well, now that we've got two of the most challenging problems in primary and secondary education vanquished we can solve the lack of competent and sufficient teacher staff by offering performance pay. Of course the Treasurer, Mr Costello, has informed Ms Bishop that he isn't going to write the cheque.

Now it may have escaped Ms Bishop that if you have a pool of individuals where the normal distribution centres on a given level whether you pay them $60,000 or $120,000 they are still the same individuals.

On the other hand if you offer starting salaries of $50,000 with career paths which lead to $120,000 and provide conditions both for their education and training as well as providing adequate resources once they perform as teachers, the profession becomes attractive.

And you have a good chance of attracting a large number of applicants allowing you to pick the best and, therefore, the quality of the pool becomes significantly increased.

Of course that takes time and the resources that must needs be provided at tertiary, secondary and primary educational levels will cost a lot more than throwing a few dollars at individuals that are deemed better than the average, and would in all probability already have been performing to that standard because they 1) had the ability to do so, and 2) had the dedication to do so.

Will Ms Bishop's brand of performance pay really improve the performance of the sector in providing a higher proportion of better educated students to want to take up science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM?

Perhaps marginally.

The truth is the Coalition Government does not want to increase the proportion of the revenue it obtains from the tax paying public for education unless driven to do so through voter backlash. It does, however, perceive that it must appear to be doing something, and it is that appearance that matters. That's what gets you elected. The detail of the Higher Education Endowment Fund is a recent example of what appears to be a perfidious slight of hand.

Whether or not the Labor opposition, were it to gain power, would really be prepared to take the view that what's best for the nation is the goal to be pursued rather than the three year goal of re-election and indeed would they be interested in persuading the population that it is in their and their children's best interests to do so, well...

Harry Robinson tells us that punting online $1 will return $2.15 if you bet on the Coalition getting back while backing Labor will get you $1.79. So we may yet find out.

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web