Padstow education and Gonksi champion Angelo Gavrielatos awarded OAM

PADSTOW public education champion and Gonksi warrior Angelo Gavrielatos has attributed his Medal of the Order of Australia to hardworking teachers across Australia.

Education International project director and Padstow local Angelo Gavrielatos has been awarded an OAM.

PADSTOW public education champion and Gonksi warrior Angelo Gavrielatos has attributed his Medal of the Order of Australia to hardworking teachers across Australia.

Mr Gavrielatos, 52, has spent much of his working life fighting for the rights of teachers, first as a senior figure with the NSW Teachers Federation in the 1980s and ‘90s and later as deputy president and president of the Australian Education Union until 2015. His OAM is for service to industrial relations and educational organisations.

“It is humbling. It’s an honour to be recognised but at the same time it’s a great tribute to teachers across Australia … whom I’ve served for many years,” he said.

The Punchbowl High School boy began a career in education as a public school teacher in Green Valley.

It was that he discovered the pressures put on public schools and their teachers.

“What was apparent from when I started teaching and is apparent now is the absolute need to direct resources to where they are needed most, resources to our disadvantaged communities and to other students that need them.” Mr Gavrielatos said.

“It is as true today and it was true then — if we want every child and every student to reach their full potential our funding system needs to target resources to where they are needed most and that’s the essence of the Gonski funding reform.”

Mr Gavrielatos was a key figure leading the fight to establish the Gonski funding model, which started in 2014 to ensure all children are educated in properly resourced schools, but is now due to end.

But Mr Gavrielatos is now a project director at Belgium-based Educational International, leading a global campaign challenging the growing privatisation and commercialisation of education.