Kevin Rudd's tax rebate for parents to buy computers is gesture politics at its most meaningless. The reason that 15 per cent of students finish their schooling unable to adequately read or write is not because they don't have broadband at home. A new laptop is not much use to a child being taught by ineffective teachers in a dilapidated classroom.
The Labor leader has spoken of the education "gap between the haves and the have-nots". His policy does little to rectify that gap. The students most in need of a better education are unlikely to have parents who will now buy a computer because they'll be receiving a rebate of a few hundred dollars.
The families of more than 2 million schoolchildren will be eligible for the rebate. The announcement provided a good photo opportunity with the Labor leader brandishing a laptop as "the 21st-century toolbox". What the ALP hasn't yet been asked to explain is whether tax rebates for computers are the best way to spend $2.3 billion.
There's no evidence that the barrier to every household having a computer is cost. Seventy-five per cent of Australians already have a computer at home. International research overwhelmingly shows that attitude is a bigger barrier to learning than is the price of an internet connection. Parents who themselves have minimal education levels are less likely to make a financial investment in their children's education. If Labor had really wanted to target the students who didn't have access to technology, it could simply propose buying the computers and then giving them away free of charge. Instead it is likely that the families taking advantage of the rebate will be those who already have computers.
The Prime Minister lost Sunday night's debate. However he made one point to which Rudd doesn't have an answer. It might be old-fashioned but John Howard was correct when he spoke about the importance of students gaining literacy and numeracy skills. Parents would prefer that, instead of government inventing an ever-increasing array of initiatives, it concentrated on making sure schools first got the basics right.
A tax rebate for computer purchases is attractive to politicians because it's easy. It satisfies Labor's desire to appear modern. There's nothing more forward-looking than talking about technology. But the policy doesn't actually improve the quality of education.
Talking about attracting the best candidates into teaching doesn't attract the same media attention as do announcements about cash for computers. And anyway, the public has heard it all before. It is precisely because politicians prefer the symbolic to the necessary when it comes to education that we are still debating the question of how to attract and retain good teachers in our schools.
To be fair, the tendency to the trendy is not restricted to the Opposition. The Federal Government requires any school receiving Commonwealth funds to have a functioning flagpole flying the Australian flag. Under the "Flagpole Funding Initiative", schools can receive $1500 to install, replace or repair a flagpole. A flagpole is nice to have, but maybe there are more pressing issues facing the Australian school system.
The tokenism of Labor's policy is demonstrated by considering the other sorts of education expenses on which parents will not be allowed to claim a rebate. For example, school uniforms are an unavoidable expense. It's unclear why the federal government should assist parents to purchase educational software but not uniforms. The cost of school excursions is a problem for many parents. For them, a higher priority than a computer at home is ensuring that their child is not missing out on something that every other child in the class is receiving.
If Labor was truly interested in an "education revolution", it would extend the principle it has established beyond tax rebates for computer purchases. There's no reason why tax rebates should not be available to parents who make a direct and immediate investment in their child's education. And of course the way parents do this is by paying school fees.
In an ideal world, tax rebates for school fees would be available to all parents, regardless of family income and regardless of whether the child attends a government or non-government school. For the moment, at least, such a policy is too radical for any of the parties.
Something more realistic in the foreseeable future would be to limit tax rebates for school fees to families on low incomes. Not only would this ease the financial burden of education borne by parents; more importantly, by reducing the cost of schooling, whether in the government or non-government system, it would give parents a greater capacity to choose the most appropriate school for their child.
That is the best way of reducing the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
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