The Hawke government and education 1983–1985

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Abstract
Education was a major component of the platform and performance of the Whitlam governments. Under Fraser, projects were abandoned and overall growth ceased. The needs principle for aid to non‐government schools was undermined by the emphasis on unrestricted access to alternatives to the State system. Pressure grew for schooling to reflect and service the needs of the market place. The 1983 election campaign scarcely mentioned education although special interests ensured that traditional commitments were secured. Once in power, the Hawke government tended to ignore these and maintained constraints on education spending. Naive attempts in 1983 to implement the policy of reducing grants to wealthy private schools resulted, by 1984, in a bruised and shaken Hawke government having to placate the powerful private school/Catholic bishops lobby with a generously funded ‘historic settlement’ of the State Aid debate. The Participation and Equity Program was introduced to increase participation in post‐compulsory education, particularly by disadvantaged groups. Initially the depressed state of tertiary education was not addressed by the Hawke government which continued the neglect characteristic of the Fraser years. Hawke was returned to office in 1984 on a platform which had as little to say about education as it had in 1983. The rhetoric and practice of the Hawke government has tended to reflect a view of education which is highly economic and instrumental in orientation. A crude nexus is seen to exist between educational spending and productive employment, a view which excludes any concern for the social benefits of education or a longer‐term perspective about the value of intellectual endeavour. Labor's traditional ideals and objectives of widening access to education and hence social and economic power are in danger of being ignored. If economic considerations alone continue to dominate policy, the legacy of the Hawke government may well be a set of educational policies which are destined, on balance, to increase rather than reduce inequalities in our society.

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