SUPPORTERS

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Hannie Rayson - What Matters

We are at a dinner party and my girlfriend launches into a story about going on a tour of one of Melbourne's most prestigious grammar schools. more details...

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Christos Tsiolkas

It occurred one late summer when I was around eight years old. One Sunday afternoon, my father took my younger brother and I for a long walk. We crossed the Studley Park Bridge, crossed the river from Richmond into Kew. more details...

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Jane Caro - 10 reasons to send your child to a government school

1. Your child will get four more weeks of education every year. By the end of an average thirteen year education, children in government schools have received an entire year of extra education, for free. Think about it, not only do the non-government schools charge you anything up to $12,000p.a. for the privilege of 4 weeks a year less education, but you then have to shell out even more for camp or school holiday care, to keep the kids occupied while they're on all those extra holidays. more details...

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Mem Fox - The public/private school debate continued

I was once so perplexed by the private/public school debate I wrote an article to examine my own views on the matter and to sort out what I felt to be the peculiar views of others. Its title was Private education vs. private schools, or why my heiress went to the local high school. My puzzled irritation was directed mainly at middle class professionals, many of whom were my friends and colleagues, who appeared to lack the confidence and the self-esteem they needed in order to trust the state system to educate their children. more details...

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Sian Prior

We love to think of Australia as 'the land of the fair go'. To me, a fair go means trying to ensure that everyone in this country has the same access to resources, to cultural capital, to information and to education. The public school system can't eradicate every odious inequality in our community. more details...

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Shane Maloney

Like most parents, I want the best possible education for my kids. For me, that means an education which develops the kind of skills they will need to make their way in the world and the kind of values they will need to make a positive contribution to that world. more details...

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Phillip Adams - School ties that bind

While it looked like someone had shoved a stick into a community of termites, the mound was the Sydney Opera House and the over excited insects were children. Countless kids, a jostling, joking jumble of pre-adolescence bussed in from all over the state. A jetsam of genders, races and religions gloriously misbehaving though some looked wide-eyed with terror at what lay ahead. Because, seconds later, this cacophony of kids was expected to file inside and become a mass choir. While others would form a symphony orchestra or a jazz band or a corps de ballet. more details...

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Peter Doherty

All the indications are that the strong economies of the future will be built on the capacity to exploit novelty, insight, discovery and innovation. Australia has strong fundamentals in agriculture, mining and tourism. However, it is increasingly obvious that the level of prosperity that Australians expect cannot, in the long term, be supplied solely by the exploitation of natural resources. Developing a knowledge-based economy depends substantially on individual creativity and enterprise. The basic problem for us is how, with a population of only 20 million, are we to compete in this new world. more details...