Coalition launches education policy, with push for more 'independent public' schools

TONY Abbott has launched the Coalition's education policy, promising to match Labor's spending dollar for dollar over four years.

TONY Abbott has launched the Coalition's education policy, promising to match Labor's spending dollar for dollar over four years.

The Opposition Leader, campaigning in Penrith in the marginal NSW seat of Lindsay, said the Coalition would focus on improved teacher quality, greater parental involvement in decision making, a sound national curriculum and funding certainty.

The policy promises to restore the focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics in primary and secondary schools.

The education policy also promises to improve the takeup of foreign languages and improve NAPLAN test result turnaround times.

Under the plan, about 1500 existing public schools could become “independent public schools” by 2017.

This would give parents and principles greater independence in how their schools were run.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the concept, which had been pioneered in Western Australia, had been popular with parents in lower socio-economic schools.

“It is ambitious principals in the government school system working with their communities to turn those communities around, not so much in affluent Perth but in the lower SES school areas where a school can transform a community,” Mr Pyne said.

“And while it's horrifying to the union in some respects, reward for effort is having an important effect in terms of parental engagement in those independent public schools.

“So it's not the affluent schools that are embracing independent public schools - it is now the schools that can see if they had the same kind of decision-making power as the local non-government school, how they'd be able to change that school and that community.”

Mr Abbott added: “They're very popular with the community and it's interesting that for the first time since figures were kept in WA the proportion of people enrolled in public schools as opposed to in private schools has increased.

“So these independent public schools are making public education more attractive than was previously the case and that's got to be a good thing,” Mr Abbott said.