Elections. They bring promises and disappointments at best, and divisiveness at worst.
The tag line for the Labor Party’s campaign in Victoria was ‘Delivering for all Victorians’.
The closing statement in the Victorian Premier’s victory speech was ‘The next four years will be about delivering for all Victorians’.
A clever campaign, and perhaps one that deserves congratulations for such a clean and obvious message. But that’s where the promises end and the divisiveness begins.
Labor has pledged $396.8 million dollars to enable every State school student to receive dental care.
According to the Summary Statistics for Victorian Schools – July 2018, the number of students enrolled in public schools who will benefit from this promise is 618,846. If you do the sums, that’s $642 per public school student in one year.
The remaining 352,822 students in Catholic and Independent schools, as well as the unaccounted-for home schooled students, are apparently not worthy of the same dental health care as that promised to public school students.
This is not ‘delivering for all Victorians’.
Although many questions could be raised regarding the socio-economic status of Victorian families, and the assumption that only the disadvantaged attend public schools, this is not the fundamental issue.
What needs to asked is this:
Why is funding for dental health tied to public schools?
The average Victorian is not covered by the basic dental services proposed under this pledge. Tying $396.8 million dollars in dental services only to children attending public schools does not equate to ‘delivering for all Victorians’.
Elections bring promises and disappointments at best, and divisiveness at worst.
The latest, and not the least of these, is the Victorian government’s self-serving obsession with power at the expense of education, principals, teachers and Victorian families in general.
Copyright © Cheryl Lacey 2018
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Cheryl Lacey is an educationist and advocate of agitating change in Australian education to face global challenges facing Australia and Australians.
If you would like to learn more about the outcomes achieved by educational leaders and teams who have worked with me, contact me at cheryl@cheryllacey.com or visit www.cheryllacey.com
