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Throwing Money at Edukashun

Ross Fitzgerald

Aug 16 2019

5 mins

Australians’ greatest resource is not what’s under the ground but what’s between our ears. That’s so obvious when you think about it. The trouble is we rarely do. We endlessly ponder the challenges to our prosperity and security but take our education systems largely for granted. This even though a good grounding in the core culture, a sound grasp of the “three Rs”, and an unquenchable intellectual curiosity are the essential pre-requisites for our future well-being. If we are to continue to flourish, Australians must be at least as capable – individual-by-individual – as the citizens of any other nation. And the foundation of that must be the best possible education. 

To the extent that governments ever think about education they assume that more money is the key to quality. Money is important, but how we spend it matters at least as much as how much we increase it. While Australia’s universities appear to be improving somewhat in comparative performance,…

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