Short-sighted education cuts smash future

EDUCATION is an investment not a cost.

Tony Abbott has defended his decisions to cut funds to higher education, abolish school funding reforms, make $80 billion cuts in state education funding, and review the National Quality Framework to potentially remove important quality measures and qualification requirements for child care, saying they are all for “the long-term economic benefit of the country”.

Decisions like Abbott’s that impact on access to educational opportunity at every level of the life-span and that cut funding to higher education, to schools, and to early childhood education are short sighted and actually compromise our future.

Education and access to quality education has a direct impact on economic statistics.

A good education is essential for a country’s social and economic wellbeing.

Having a good education improves people’s lives.

Reports and research by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) prove this.

A good education maximises human potential and society’s potential.

James Heckman is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and a Nobel Prize winner in Economics.

He offers a warning that Tony should heed stating: “Outcomes in education, health and sociability greatly influence a nation’s economic productivity and future.”

Achieving better outcomes in these areas will create far greater productivity and prosperity than simply cutting spending to reduce deficits. Heckman is an expert in the economics of human development.

His work demonstrates that education and early childhood education is a cost-effective strategy for promoting economic growth.