In a speech in NSW Parliament’s upper house yesterday, Ms Munro bluntly stated that regulations on ratios should change to cut costs in the sector.
“There are ways we can make childcare cheaper. We can change the regulations around educators who are childcare providers,” she said.
“We don’t need five or six highly educated people to look after 50 kids. Maybe we need one.”
This is a stark contrast to the current National Quality Framework, which mandates a maximum ratio of one educator for 10 children over three years old.
Aren’t there like a billion studies that show that lower teacher:student ratios improve outcomes for both educators and students?
What are they proposing? You have one qualified educator and a couple of rando’s for 50 kids?
Oh hang on, I get it. You could use unqualified overseas ‘special skills’ visas who will take half minimum wage cash in hand.
Or even better! Use au-pairs who will just be paid board and food! Dutton knows all about au-pairs and granting them visas!
They don’t care, their kids are in private schools with tutors and specialized classes. The working class dosen’t need education, just need to work.
Or, another idea - we stop subsidising private schools and only give public money to public schools? I don’t think the private school down the road really needs a fifth auditorium while the kids at the public school are sitting in the library for science class because there’s literally nobody to teach it. But I guess we don’t want the poors getting educated, can’t have my landlords little princes and princesses competing with the peasant class for jobs.
I swear if anyone tells me they’re voting LNP I’m going to have a really hard time not just punching them in the face.
we stop subsidising private schools and only give public money to public schools?
I’ve always disliked this idea. I’m the product of public education and my kids are in public schools as well. I believe every kid has a right to government funding toward their education. If a rich family wants to spend fees above and beyond the government allotment so their kid goes to school with a swimming pool or rowing team, I am ok with it. Those kids shouldn’t lose their government education funds because they come from wealth. They are still citizens and have the same entitlement.Besides, if the million kids currently in private education suddenly turned up at their local schools tomorrow to enroll in the public system, they would totally break it.
Besides, if the million kids currently in private education suddenly turned up at their local schools tomorrow to enroll in the public system, they would totally break it.
You phase it out gradually, not immediately cut it in one go. That is of course challenging, because changing a system isn’t just about the end goal, but how you get there. Ultimately though, the abolishment of private education, childcare, and healthcare should be the end goal, as they are all essential services that shouldn’t be left to the whims of the market.
I think this is like admitting defeat. It’s saying ‘there is no way we can make the public system as good as the private system so we’re just going to take over the private schools’. Private education is stupidly expensive. I had a client who used to pay more than my annual salary to send her kids to a private school. Parents are selecting private education because they see value in the calibre of education there.
If you can improve the public education quality to the point where it is on-par with private, parents will cease to see the value in paying up to half a Million dollars sending their kids to private school. Our family has done the equivalent of this. We moved to the catchment of a top-tier public school to give our kids the best public education options available. There is as much disparity between public schools as there is between public/private. I believe there’s a good middle-ground to be had where more academic-focused public schools are created. The few that exist now are so difficult to get into that loads of parents who want their kids to get a great education (we applied but our kid didn’t make the grade) aren’t qualifying.
There will always be a percentage who want some of the things private education offers (like religion), but enough will start sending their kids public that the remaining private students become a rounding error.
I’m also not comfortable with the idea of the government effectively saying either of the following:
- [To parents] If you decide to send your child to private school, they stop being entitled to the education funding you are paying taxes for.
- [To schools] You no longer own this school, we are taking over your private property.
I’m on the other side of this one.
If wealthy parents want to pay for an education that’s fine but when more taxpayer money goes to private schools than public it feels a bit off.
Temporary increase in funding and long phase out would help mitigate the issue.
It’s like the amount of money we put into subsidising private healthcare. I get why private exists and wouldn’t want it to go away overnight but why not properly fund public instead.
I’m going to stop now before I go down the do things like Norway rabbit hole
If wealthy parents want to pay for an education that’s fine but when more taxpayer money goes to private schools than public it feels a bit off.
This is a really frequently misunderstood topic and there are plenty of people who intentionally cherry-pick the numbers to make the government look bad over it. So, I genuinely understand where you are coming from.
The first bit of confusion is that public schools get most of their funding from their state government. A comparatively small percentage comes from the federal government, usually for major works. Private school government funding comes from the federal government.
The second bit that confuses people is that funding isn’t just that ‘every school gets $x’. The. Amount of funding is mostly dictated by the student cohort. Rather than thinking of it as every school gets $x, think of it as the default amount per student is $x.
So yes, you get situations where a big private school with 2,500 students seems to get more money than any public school. But average it per student and account for what the state government is providing to the public school and the numbers come out far more evenly.
I sure agree that this should be far more apparent and easy to follow. Maybe the federal government should give the funds to the state education departments and have the states fund the private schools? I’d be on board with that.
I get why private exists and wouldn’t want it to go away overnight but why not properly fund public instead.
Ignoring my personal distaste for private schools for a sec, I find irony in the fact that we’re discussing this topic on a post about early child care - where it is almost all private. We managed to get into the local government childcare centre, but it was not easy. And not much different in price.
Bruh the 1:20 i grew up with was unmanageable. I might as well home school my kid with that level of attention they are going to get. 8 hours/50 so like 8 minutes of possible 1 on 1 time.
The article is referring to Early Childcare facilities. Imagine 1 adult vs 50 three year olds?
You get a valium, and you get a valium, everybody gets a valium.
Lol, I have 1 toddler and a 1:1 ratio doesn’t even seem enough sometimes. 50 is just nuts.
Child care pits coming soon to a community center near you.
So depressing to see that libs can come out and say shit like this, and then you go to your local area’s Facebook group and it’s still full of people saying ‘vote Labor out’ because another car got stolen or whatever.
The libs are gonna cut cop funding too.
I’m sure that whatever they plan on doing will have the opposite effect on crime, but it’s effective to campaign on it, look at Queensland.
Labor should probably have an answer for this instead of just ignoring the perception people have.
That’s way worst. I could handle maybe 3 max. Ideally 2 but 50? Hope everything in that room is padded and kids strapped to TVs like in walle. Cause otherwise that’s That’s lawless territory. So when’s the benevolent AI child care Rosie coming online?
Do you want dead toddlers? Because this is how you get dead toddlers
I’d say this woman was outright evil, but maybe she’s just a fucking idiot.
“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice”
Why not both?
Holy fucking shit. That will now be the NUMBER ONE TALKING POINT I will be leading with when doorknocking this election:
“Hey, do you or any friends have young kids? Yeah? Did you know if the Libs get in they have just suggested to change ratios to as little as 1 educator to 50 kids? No? Well that is what you risk if you don’t put Libs last. Terrifying, huh? Thanks for your time!”
