Dark day for 19 SA school communities

Vanguard June 2012 p. 4
Nick G.

(Parents and students protest the forcible amalgamation of junior primary schools and primary schools)

Nineteen communities in South Australia have responded angrily to the decision by the Weatherill State Labor government to go ahead with the amalgamation of their discrete junior primary and primary schools.

Many feel gutted by a deceitful process of sham “consultation” from a government that had pledged to change Labor’s direction – away from the confrontational and arrogant posture of the previous leadership team of Mike Rann and Kevin Foley.

Weatherill forced a change of leadership on the government at a time when it had alienated large sections of the community and most SA unions.  He said he would “listen and decide” rather than “announcing and defending” as per his predecessors.

Weatherill has undoubtedly recaptured some lost ground with his mild demeanour and his willingness to try and placate Labor critics.

He told a recent SA Unions organising conference that he wanted his government to be one that “unions would be proud of”, and has promised to make changes to the unfair and punitive system of workers compensation that operates in SA.

However, in his first major test of relations between his government and the community, he has overridden community feeling to close successful and popular junior primary schools.

To do this, he has had to abandon his own party’s policy, which up until the 2010 Budget had been to keep schools open if that was what the local community wanted.

(Above: The eyes have it...sadness at the loss of their schools)

To mourn the decision, described by AEU President Correna Haythorpe as a “dark day” for education in SA, parents and children at amalgamating schools held a rally on Friday May 11 outside the Education Department.  Candles were held to symbolise the extinguishing of educational light at the targeted sites.

The decision to amalgamate the schools – all of which had government review panels which recommended against the moves – shows that bourgeois democracy is no guarantee of the upholding of the people’s will .

As one of the last Labor governments in Australia’s states and territories, it exposes social democracy as a bucket with many holes incapable of holding the people’s confidence.