Greens back down on private schools

THE Greens will dump their most hostile policies regarding private schools as they seek to lift their flagging poll numbers.

THE Greens will dump their most hostile policies regarding private schools as they seek to lift their flagging poll numbers and reposition the party.

The draft education policy prepared at last week's national conference and circulated to party members for approval - obtained by The Australian - ends plans to freeze commonwealth funding for private schools at 2003-04 levels.

It also removes references to investing money saved from ending public subsidies to the "very wealthiest" private schools into a national equity funding program for public institutions.

The draft justifies the moves by saying the existing policy is "inconsistent" with supporting the arrangement recommended in the Gonski review.

Greens leader Christine Milne says the draft policy has "reaffirmed our commitment to accessible, high-quality public education". But one Greens source described the draft proposal as "extremely contentious".

Citing "cost implications", the policy deletes commitments to fund the construction of new public preschool facilities, and to abolish all fees and charges for educational services at TAFEs.

It also removes plans to increase and cost-index per-student funding of all public universities and ensure adequate funding to all rural, regional and outer-suburban universities. And it removes a clause rejecting the use of funding vouchers, saying the stance is "unnecessary".

The move is the latest policy reversal from the Greens after the party moved in July to soften its stand on death duties.

The party has suffered a series of setbacks in recent state and territory elections, most recently in last month's ACT Legislative Assembly poll where the Greens vote fell by close to a third, leading to the loss of three of their four members.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne told The Australian much of the proposed policy was still hostile to private schools. He pointed to clauses calling for a new model for recurrent funding to non-government schools that "decouples it from spending on public schools".

Mr Pyne also cited provisions that would prohibit private schools from exercising discretion in the hiring of staff or selection of students and require them to "have an admissions and expulsions policy similar to public schools including an obligation to enrol".

Mr Pyne said that the Greens maintained a bias against private education.

"The Greens are anti-non-government schooling," he said. "It's in their DNA.

"The idea of churches and charities educating children offends them. They want them educated by the state so they can control what they are taught."