Private education debate was significant in Australian election

Australian Labor Party leader Mark Latham's publicity stunt publication of a list of 67 elite schools he would like to receive less funding highlighted the importance of private education as an election issue, according to visiting Australian commentator Janet Albrechtsen.

"It was a deliberate attack from Labor, even though it was inconsistent with his personal views that people can and should do well in life - if they do well, this policy would slug them," said Dr Albrechtsen (pictured), a columnist for The Australian. With the numbers of families choosing private schools increasing - one in five pupils were private 25 years ago, one in three today - Australians were showing they wanted choice. Labor's policy was in contrast to the needs of many families, Dr Albrechtsen said.

Many parents were taking on more than one job to get their children into the school they wanted them to attend.

"Labor said its internal polling showed the policy doing well, but other polls said otherwise. People feel pretty ripped off by the education system," she said.

For example, parents needed to know how their children's school was doing relative to other schools, so they could make judgements on their progress but the information was not always available.

Literacy was another area where parents were justified in feeling ripped off.

"Twenty-six experts have written to the Commonwealth government telling it that children are falling through the cracks because of 'whole reading' programmes, which had, in effect, become a worldview for many teachers.

"But it is hard to get change. We need to reignite the reading wars and get phonics back on the agenda."

• Dr Albrechtsen was in New Zealand in early October for the Association of Cambridge Schools' annual conference in Auckland. She gave a public presentation in Wellington - as a guest of the Education Forum - on literacy and school policies in Australia.

An opinion piece by Dr Albrechtsen on schools policy is at this web page.

An opinion piece by Dr Albrechtsen on tertiary education funding is at this web page.