In Defence of Public Education in Australia and New Zealand
Build the International Youth and Students for Social Equality!
A socialist program to fight the Coalition-Labor-Greens assault on education in Australia
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia), 16 March 2016
The IYSSE is fighting for the development of an independent, socialist movement of the working class in opposition to the assault on education and the gutting of social spending.
Australian primary teachers resign in protest at standardised, assessment-based education
By Susan Allan and Linda Tenenbaum, 14 March 2016
The two teachers decided to go public, hoping to encourage other teachers to speak out about the escalating education crisis.
Australia: Labor Party, teacher unions prepare further assault on public education
By Patrick Kelly and Frank Gaglioti, 9 March 2016
The Labor and union campaign for a new “Gonski” school funding model is a fraud from start to finish.
Rising school costs deepen class divide in New Zealand education
By John Braddock, 16 February 2016
Public education is supposed to be free, but families are being pressured to give more money to schools every year.
Australian government-union conspiracy to sack “underperforming” teachers
By Richard Phillips, 15 February 2016
The unions have torn up teachers’ hard-won struggle for job security by implementing new anti-democratic inspection regimes and streamlined sacking procedures.
Cuts and closures intensify in Australian TAFE colleges
By Erika Zimmer, 16 January 2016
Young people seeking vocational training are facing skyrocketing tuition fees.
Australian government plans to repackage university cuts
By Evrim Ludlow, 26 October 2015
Despite union claims of “victory,” the Turnbull-led Coalition will push ahead with revised schemes to slash student funding.
Australia: IYSSE campaign pushes back Griffith University’s political censorship
By our correspondents, 21 March 2015
Support from students and WSWS readers has forced the university’s authorities to drop their outright refusal to allow the IYSSE to register a club this year.
Former Australian Labor minister endorses university fee deregulation
By Oliver Campbell, 6 February 2015
The measures that the government is attempting to implement are the continuation of a bipartisan assault on higher education.
Australia: Murdoch newspaper denounces universities for “over-educating” students
By Will Morrow, 23 January 2015
An editorial in the Australian newspaper reveals the deeply-reactionary ideological agenda that underlies the bipartisan political assault on the right to university education.
Youth in Australia worse off than their parents
By Zac Hambides, 3 December 2014
This generation of young people will become the first in the post-war period to have a lower standard of living than their parents.
Australia: Vocation Ltd affair exposes impact of privatisation
By Oliver Campbell, 12 November 2014
Thousands of students have been corralled into low-quality courses provided by private operators that are effectively funded by governments.
Australian student union’s phony “day of action”
By Oliver Campbell and Zac Hambides, 27 October 2014
The National Union of Students is promoting the illusion that education can be defended by pressuring Labor and the Greens to block the Abbott government’s budget cuts.
Teaching war: Australian government targets primary school students
By Susan Allan, 22 October 2014
Australian authorities are distributing patriotic war propaganda among school children as part of the official World War I centenary commemorations.
Job cuts deepen in Australian TAFE colleges
By Erika Zimmer, 15 October 2014
The Abbott government is intensifying funding cuts and pro-market restructuring begun under the previous Labor government.
Australian budget protests: A political balance sheet
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 30 August 2014
Protest organisers have channelled public opposition into the dead-end of parliamentary manoeuvre, promoting the illusion that Labor and the Greens would block the budget measures.
Australian government pushes ahead with university restructuring
By Chris Johnson and Mike Head, 28 August 2014
The Abbott government is deepening the pro-market assault on higher education begun by the previous Labor government.
Fight cuts to education and the drive to war!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia), 19 August 2014
The fight for education rights must be inseparably linked with the broader struggle against austerity, the attacks on democratic rights and the dangers of war.
Australia: Sydney university staff and students oppose job cuts
By Zac Hambides, 14 August 2014
Sydney university students and staff are being diverted into another round of bankrupt appeals to the campus administration and the Labor opposition to stop job cuts.
Australia: The politics of Socialist Alternative’s protest on ABC’s “Q&A”
By Zac Hambides, 13 May 2014
The incident provided a foretaste of the diversionary campaigns that will be organised by the pseudo-left as tonight’s budget measures provoke opposition.
Australian government plans sweeping privatisation of higher education
By Mike Head, 22 April 2014
Labor’s pro-market funding system will be extended to private profit-making providers, allowing them to undercut the public universities.
Oppose the use of SSAF to attack student political clubs!
Defend the democratic rights of Griffith University students!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia), 4 April 2014
Members of political clubs at the university are being denied rights enjoyed by all other students, and attempts are being made to restrict or even proscribe their activities.
Australia: Strong response to IYSSE campaign at University of Newcastle
By our correspondents, 7 March 2014
IYSSE members won support, campaigning against an attempted university ban on “political members” being invited onto the campus.
Oppose political discrimination at University of Newcastle
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Australia, 24 February 2014
For the first time at any university, University of Newcastle Clubs and Societies is re-interpreting the Students Services and Amenities Fee legislation to justify proscribing political activities.
Australian teachers’ union backs new “performance pay” regime
By Frank Gaglioti, 20 January 2014
The AEU withdrew its court case and reached a secret deal with the Victorian state government.
Australia: New school curriculum to promote war and nationalism
By Patrick O’Connor, 14 January 2014
The education minister said he wants the syllabus “to celebrate Australia.”
Australian government announces another school funding backflip
By Patrick O’Connor, 4 December 2013
The series of shifts has provoked consternation within ruling circles, with the recently elected government seemingly unable to impose spending cuts to education.
Australian state government announces “performance pay” school regime
By Will Marshall and Patrick O’Connor, 29 October 2013
Each year, between 20 and 40 percent of teachers will be arbitrarily declared “underperforming,” denied incremental salary increases and threatened with dismissal.
University of Western Sydney academics strike over worsening conditions
By Mike Head, 24 October 2013
Picketing academics voiced wider discontent, including over the erosion of working conditions permitted by previous enterprise agreements.
Western Australia: Thousands protest against public education cuts
By our correspondents, 23 September 2013
The state government’s cuts are part of the slashing of social programs across the board, amid the unravelling of the Australian mining boom.
West Australian government axes 500 education jobs
By Joe Lopez, 22 August 2013
The WA funding model closely resembles the federal Labor government’s “Better Schools” plan.
SEP/IYSSE challenges Greens at education rallies
By our reporters, 21 August 2013
The “day of action” was organised to promote the Greens’ federal election campaign and head off any struggle against the Greens-backed Labor government.
University union spends $1 million to back Greens
By Gabriela Zabala—SEP Senate candidate for Queensland, 27 July 2013
The NTEU is backing the Greens, the very party that has propped up the minority Labor government since 2010.
Australia: Hundreds affected by fire at private university accommodation
By a reporting team, 26 June 2013
Many residents were left without accommodation, or access to their possessions, when the fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Australian Education Union pushes sell out through delegates’ meetings
By our reporters, 22 May 2013
The substantial “no” vote gave some indication of the growing hostility among teachers to the union’s betrayals.
The political issues in the fight to defend education
By Zac Hambides—SEP Senate candidate for NSW, 13 May 2013
Labor’s agenda in tertiary education is to strangle funding and complete the transformation of universities into thoroughly corporatised institutions.
Australian Education Union convenes delegates’ meeting to ram through sell-out agreement
By our reporters, 8 May 2013
Union officials attempt to impose a new enterprise deal on Victorian public school teachers.
Australian university union seeks to divert anger over Labor’s cuts
By Mike Head, 30 April 2013
Far from fighting the funding cutbacks, the NTEU is urging university managements to find ways to implement them.
Opposition grows to Australian Education Union sell-out in Victoria
By Frank Gaglioti and Patrick O’Connor, 27 April 2013
The teachers’ union is seeking to bureaucratically suppress all discussion and speedily ram through the agreement.
Australia: Socialist Alternative and the Victorian teachers’ betrayal
By Patrick O’Connor, 25 April 2013
The pseudo-left organisation Socialist Alternative functions as a prop for the trade unions and an accomplice of the federal Labor government.
Reject the Australian Education Union’s sellout agreement!
For a political offensive of the working class to defend public education
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 24 April 2013
The deal stitched up by the union behind the backs of teachers accepts the central demands of the Victorian government and opens the way for further attacks on public education.
Australia: Victorian teachers union announces sell-out deal
By Frank Gaglioti, 22 April 2013
The Australian Education Union resorted to blatant lies about the wages component of the new agreement.
IYSSE challenges unions, Greens at Australian student protests
By our correspondents, 18 April 2013
IYSSE members spoke at rallies in Sydney and Melbourne against the Labor government’s huge cutbacks to university funding.
Australian government guts university funding, promotes private schools
By Patrick O’Connor, 16 April 2013
Gillard is slashing university budgets to fund school “reforms” that will lead to public school closures and accelerate the shift of students into private schools.
Australian Education Union uses mass meeting to prepare sell-out agreement
By Susan Allan, 15 February 2013
Yesterday’s strike and mass meeting underscored the determination of the union bureaucracy to suppress any opposition to its plans for a deal that will further undermine wages, conditions and public education.
Australia: Victorian teachers prepare for mass meeting and third one-day strike
By Patrick O’Connor, 13 February 2013
The union bureaucracy has driven teachers into an impasse in the campaign for a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
University of Western Sydney victimises Professor Steve Keen
By Mark Church, 29 January 2013
By charging the well-known economics professor with “serious misconduct”, UWS is sending a threatening message to all staff and students regarding opposition to its course and job cuts.
Survey shows Australian teachers oppose NAPLAN testing
By Oliver Campbell, 7 December 2012
Ranking schools by NAPLAN literacy and numeracy test results is part of the Labor government’s regressive education agenda.
Australia: Victorian teachers’ union abandons wage claim
By Susan Allan, 29 November 2012
Even though the AEU has dropped its demand for a 30 percent wage rise, the state government is insisting on further major concessions.
Australia: Students and staff protest University of Western Sydney cuts
By Mark Church, 22 November 2012
The sweeping cuts follow similar moves at other universities across the country, flowing from the Gillard government’s “education revolution.”
Australia: TAFE teachers strike over job losses, assets sell off
By Chris Sadlier, 21 September 2012
Yesterday’s walkout was in response to new details on $300 million TAFE spending cuts.
Victorian TAFE teachers speak on cuts to funding
By our reporters, 21 September 2012
Workers expressed their hostility to the TAFE cuts and to both major political parties, Labor and Liberal.
Parti Quebecois to form minority government, after narrow election win
By Keith Jones, 6 September 2012
The Parti Québécois has won enough seats to form a minority government, ending nine years’ of Liberal rule.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) resolution to AEU mass meeting
6 September 2012
1. This meeting rejects the 2.5 percent public sector wage ceiling, performance pay, increased teaching hours and all productivity trade-offs. We demand smaller class sizes and permanency for all teachers, including for young teachers and Educational Support staff currently on contracts.
Striking teachers and support staff speak out
By our reporters, 6 September 2012
Education support workers and teachers in the Australian state of Victoria voice their anger over working conditions.
Victorian teachers’ union blocks fight against Labor’s assault on public education
By our reporters, 6 September 2012
At a mass rally of 15,000 striking teachers, union officials prevented discussion on how to fight the Gillard government-led attack on public education.
Australian government imposes new “performance” regime on public schools
By Patrick O’Connor, 4 September 2012
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speech yesterday marks a major step in the further undermining of public education.
Australia: TAFE staff and students rally against funding cuts
By our reporter, 17 August 2012
About 2,000 technical college teachers and students marched through Melbourne yesterday.
Australia: Teachers face political struggle to fight Victorian TAFE cuts
By Margaret Rees, 15 August 2012
The unions are intent on diverting the anger over these devastating cuts into the dead end of a campaign for the return of a Labor state government.
Teachers strike across Australia’s largest state
By James Cogan, 29 June 2012
The large turn-out underscores the depth of concern over the “local schools” blueprint of the state and federal governments.
Oppose the exploitation of international students
By Patrick O’Connor and SEP candidate for Melbourne, 22 June 2012
The conditions of international students in Melbourne and throughout Australia testify to the contempt of the major parties for the conditions of youth.
Australia: Victorian teachers strike over pay and conditions
By our reporters, 8 June 2012
Angered by the state government’s regressive demands, record numbers of teachers stopped work yesterday.
Australia: School teachers to strike in Victoria
By Frank Gaglioti and Patrick O’Connor, 6 June 2012
About 20,000 primary and secondary public school teachers in Victoria are expected to strike tomorrow.
Australia: New South Wales teachers stop-work against devolution agenda
By our reporters, 25 May 2012
Devolving powers to school principals is part of Labor’s misnamed “education revolution”, which has imposed student performance testing and the publication of ranking tables.
Cost-cutting taking place across Australian universities
By Zac Hambides, 21 May 2012
The sackings at the University of New South Wales are the latest in a series of cuts occurring at universities across Australia.
Australia: TAFE teachers and students protest Victorian budget cuts
By Margaret Rees, 15 May 2012
Entire courses will soon be eliminated, and some students will face a quadrupling of fees, making vocational education unaffordable for many working class youth.
Australia: Parents and teachers protest against Gosford school merger
By Erika Zimmer, 7 April 2012
The amalgamation of the primary and secondary schools is part of a wider cost-cutting agenda pursued by the federal and state governments.
Students and academics protest job cuts at the University of Sydney
By an ISSE reporting team, 6 April 2012
The significant turn-out revealed the extent of concern over the threatened job losses and the wider assault on universities being driven by the Gillard government’s “education revolution.”
Oppose the job cuts at University of Sydney!
By the International Students for Social Equality, 3 April 2012
The cuts are bound up with the federal Labor government’s market-driven “education revolution” funding scheme.
Australian states impose Gillard’s “Empowering Local Schools” program
By Will Marshall, 14 March 2012
The NSW government has become the first state administration to outline the content of federal Labor’s far-reaching changes to the education system.
Australian government dismisses call to boost school funding
By Will Marshall, 3 March 2012
According to the Gonski report, Australia has one of the most inequitable education systems in the OECD.
Australia: NAPLAN “breaches” by schools almost double
By Erika Zimmer, 2 February 2012
The results point to the immense pressure on schools and teachers to achieve high scores under the Gillard government’s My School testing regime.
Australian government imposes new student union fee
By Zac Hambides, 12 November 2011
As well as an additional financial burden on students, the legislation reflects concerns in ruling circles about a developing political radicalisation among young people.
Australian university announces 70 redundancies
By our correspondents, 10 August 2011
The timing of the job cuts underlines the direct connection between the Gillard government’s “education revolution” and the enterprise agreements that the NTEU has imposed at universities during the past 18 months.
Union seeks to ram through pro-market deal at Australia’s Macquarie University
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 27 July 2011
Like agreements struck by the NTEU at more than 30 universities nationally so far, its purpose is to facilitate the Gillard government’s radical pro-market restructuring of tertiary education.
Australian Greens embroiled in Tasmanian school closures debacle
By Mike Head, 18 July 2011
The Greens remain firmly committed to deep public spending cuts, despite the Labor-Green state government being forced by public outrage to postpone plans to shut down 20 schools by the end of the year.
Australia: What next in the struggle against NAPLAN?
By James Cogan, 10 May 2011
Now into its third year of operation, the MySchool website and NAPLAN are transforming the Australian school system.
Australia: Academics’ union prepares sell-out at Macquarie University
By our reporter, 30 March 2011
Staff members were told that NTEU bargaining representatives had been forced to make undisclosed trade-offs in order to settle an enterprise agreement.
Secret report foreshadows numerous public school closures and teaching job cuts
By James Cogan and SEP candidate for Marrickville, 24 March 2011
A confidential report commissioned by the New South Wales Labor government exposes plans for massive cuts to public education, regardless of which party takes office next week.
Australia: Gillard government steps up attack on public education, with NSW Labor’s support
By Carolyn Kennett and SEP candidate for Auburn, 17 March 2011
Launched early this month, the latest version of the My School web site is another step in the Gillard Labor government’s assault on public education.
Australia: SEP member exposes role of Greens and unions at Macquarie University rally
By our reporters, 11 January 2011
Socialist Equality Party member Carolyn Kennett explained the need for a political struggle against the Gillard government and for a socialist perspective to defend education at a stop work rally on January 5.
Australia: Union lifts work bans at Macquarie University
By our reporters, 24 December 2010
Union officials are seeking to contain the anger of university workers and prevent them from developing a political struggle in defence of public education against the Gillard government.
Australian Labor government “education revolution” leads to Macquarie University job cuts
By our reporters, 17 November 2010
In a move that flows directly from the Labor government’s new “education revolution” funding regime, Sydney’s Macquarie University has angered staff and students by announcing a 7 percent reduction in funds allocated to faculties for teaching undergraduate students in 2011.
Falling overseas enrolments compound funding crisis for Australian universities
By Zac Hambides, 28 October 2010
Less than three years after the Labor government came to office promising a market-based “education revolution,” universities have begun axing jobs and demanding higher student fees.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) Public Meetings in Sydney
NAPLAN testing and My School: Rudd’s free market education agenda
25 May 2010
Teachers, parents, students—and all those concerned about the fate of public education—are invited to attend public meetings being convened by the Socialist Equality Party to discuss the Rudd Labor government’s historic assault on public education.
New Zealand universities move to cut admissions
By Tom Peters, 24 May 2010
Thousands of would-be students will be turned away next semester, after announcements this month that four New Zealand universities will drastically restrict admissions.
An exchange on NAPLAN and the role of Socialist Alliance
By Laura Tiernan, 20 May 2010
Socialist Alliance typifies the role of all the ex-radical groups. Despite occasional “anti-capitalist” rhetoric, they are utterly hostile to any independent struggle by working people against the ALP and trade unions.
Australian teacher unions call off NAPLAN boycott
By Laura Tiernan, 7 May 2010
The Australian Education Union and its state affiliates yesterday called off a national boycott of standardised literacy and numeracy tests known as NAPLAN that was to be imposed next week.
SEP (Australia) public meeting resolution
6 May 2010
The following resolution was passed unanimously at SEP public meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on May 4 and 5, respectively. We urge teachers, parents and students to organise meetings to pass this resolution and contact the SEP to discuss how to take forward the fight to defend public education.
SEP public meetings oppose Australian government’s assault on public education
By our reporters, 6 May 2010
Concerned teachers, parents and students at SEP meetings in Melbourne and Sydney voted unanimously for a resolution to oppose the Rudd government’s My School web site and NAPLAN testing regime.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) Public Meetings
NAPLAN testing and My School: Rudd’s free market education agenda
23 April 2010
In January this year, the Rudd government launched its My School web site, which ranks schools nationally, based on their performance in standardised literacy and numeracy tests (known as NAPLAN). The real purpose of My School is to unleash a divisive struggle between schools.
Australia: Academics’ union makes key concessions at University of Western Sydney
By Mike Head, 21 April 2010
Less than four months after academics voted by 66 percent to reject an enterprise agreement, the NTEU has negotiated a deal that delivers virtually all the measures sought by management.
Australian teachers’ union makes empty threat to boycott NAPLAN testing
By Laura Tiernan, 14 April 2010
The main purpose of the AEU boycott is to pressure Education Minister Julia Gillard to the negotiating table to discuss a revised version of Labor’s education measures.
Australia: Students boycott farcical NUS “Day of Action”
By James Cogan, 3 April 2010
Apart from a dozen or so NUS office holders, barely 30 students took part in a “rally” in Sydney and even fewer participated in Melbourne.
Australia: Teachers’ union pushes through TAFE sell-out
By our reporters, 12 March 2010
Despite angry opposition from TAFE teachers, the NSW Teachers Federation yesterday imposed the state Labor government’s demands for longer hours and lower overall pay rates.
Gillard’s National Press Club speech
Australia: Labor’s war on public education
By Laura Tiernan, 8 March 2010
Speaking at the National Press Club on February 24, Education Minister Julia Gillard unveiled a further wave of attacks by the Rudd government on public education.
Australia: TAFE teachers challenge Labor’s education reforms, defying strike ban
By our reporters, 12 February 2010
More than 3,000 Technical and Further Education (TAFE) teachers attended a stop-work meeting yesterday—the largest in more than a decade—at Sydney Town Hall.
Australian teachers condemn Labor’s My School web site
By our correspondents, 11 February 2010
The World Socialist Web Site interviews school teachers about the Rudd government’s My School web site, which publicly ranks government and private schools across the country.
Australia: Labor’s My School web site launches new attack on public education
By Erika Zimmer, 4 February 2010
The Rudd government’s new My School web site, publicly ranking schools according to standardised tests, will accelerate the shift toward a market-based, fee-paying model of education.
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