Last night on TV, I watched the Victorian State Government’s advertising for public schools with a sense of irony. Has things come to such that schooling is yet another “service” that must compete on the market? Believe it or not, but the idea was raised. It seems to be this case already for Universities, who rely significantly on full fee paying students (from here and abroad) for their income. Private Schools are another example, with scholarships only being awarded with the ulterior motive of attracting good students to improving their image.

Back to the State Schools. While the campaign may have meant to inform parents on new features of State Schools such as “reports that are easier to understand”, it’s a little laughable. It came across as more of a sales pitch. (Although the old reports with jargon-that-makes-education-seem-more-complex-than-it-is often confused parents and students alike).

Let’s look at Victoria’s schools on the basis of cost and availability. There are:

• State Schools which are free and available to all (in theory).
• Selective Entry State Schools such as Melbourne High, Macrob and to a lesser extent University High and Balwyn High.
• Private schools which charge, unless the student is on a bursary or scholarship. One requires money, or passing a scholarship exam.
• Catholic schools which charge less. They are quite affordable.
• Alternative schools which charge (I’m not too sure how much).

I shall stop here. Blogs aren’t really definitive sources. It’s all opinion. But so are most things (even things which purport to be unopinionated, like Fox News and the Herald Sun).

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 10:29 am and is filed under Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.