Garrett’s embarrassing education contradiction

Schools Minister Peter Garrett has been caught out in an embarrassing contradiction today attempting to explain the lack of improvement in the Council of Australian Governments’ Education Agreement performance report, according to the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne.

“Mr Garrett claims the Gillard Government has spent billions of extra dollars in education since assuming office, while over the same period the COAG report shows little change or improvement in a number of key measures including reading and numeracy,” Mr Pyne said.

“Mr Garrett has gone on to claim the poor outcomes in this report justify additional spending, but without explaining why Labor’s policies have had zero impact on student outcomes.

“The Commonwealth Auditor-General belled the cat with a recent damning assessment of Labor’s literacy and numeracy national partnership which has produced no improvement in student outcomes.

“The Auditor-General has consistently found the partnerships lack transparency and accountability. Taxpayer’s money is being spent on programmes that are failing to deliver quantifiable results.

“Only the Coalition is focussed on what really matters in education. That is the quality and skill of the teacher, the robustness of the material being taught and the power of the school principal to act in the best interests of students and their school.

“With another example of proven bad policy making from Labor, how can Australians trust them to deliver wholesale changes to the entire school funding system,” Mr Pyne said.

November 14, 2012