ABSTRACT
The importance of a ‘good education’ is one of the most widely held beliefs in Australian society. As a result, in every state election, political parties make much of their education policies. To a very significant extent, however, Australian schooling has been influenced more in the past fifteen years by federal government policies than by the states. What makes this interesting is that the federal government has no constitutional power over education and provides directly less than 10 per cent of the funding of government schools.
