Gonski panellist slams school funding neglect

A PANEL member of the Gonski review into school funding argues governments have turned their backs on public education

A PANEL member of the Gonski review into school funding argues governments have turned their backs on public education, elevating school choice above equality for all students and contributing to a downgrading of public schools.

Former West Australian premier and federal Labor minister Carmen Lawrence, now professor in psychology at the University of Western Australia, also criticises the federal government's "restricted focus" on test results and "skills-based education", warning that it may starve the nation of bright ideas.

Writing in The Monthly, Professor Lawrence says a tight focus on vocational preparation and testing "may result in young people being denied opportunities for genuine intellectual discovery and creativity".

"Correspondingly, the nation may be starved of the ingenuity and problem-solving needed to respond to pressing social and economic dilemmas," she says.

Professor Lawrence said education was valued today for its role in ensuring highly paid and rewarding jobs, which was partly responsible for the push for greater choice in education.

"The contribution of education to individual creativity, health and wellbeing or to wider social objectives like reducing prejudice and improving our democracy might be tossed in as an afterthought," she says. "And, God forbid we should even hint at woolly ideas like the sheer, glorious excitement of learning, the delight of mastery, of bright curiosity satisfied and of play."

Professor Lawrence recently said she was "mystified" and "disappointed" by the federal government's failure to endorse the Gonski report, which recommended an overhaul of the school funding system.