Persuasive Devices

So over the next few weeks, we are going to be looking at a couple of articles and cartoons, all of which, talking about our education system. We'll be trying to identify persuasive devices and see how they're persuasive.  Most of the articles and cartoons will be covering the Gonski Review. Don't know what the Gonski review is? Here's a little background information.

David Gonski is an Australian businessman known for having a lot of "connections". He has been described as "one of the country's best-connected businessman" and has been dubbed as "Mr Networks".

David Gonski has reported that the Australian schooling performance has slipped over the past decades, and he believes that this is due to the fact that there's a major gap between high performing students and low performing students, with private schools being funded more.

"The current school funding model looks at the average income and education status of the 200 households around our families so it's akin determining age pension by the average of the ages of the people of the street, so it is quite nonsensical."

As a solution, the Gonski Review recommends a $5 Billion investment in Australia's government schools and non-government school.

The Gonksi review allocates a base funding rate for each student, with additional loadings for areas of disadvantage. This means that schools, with a high proportion of low-income or disabled students would be funded at a higher rate and thus balancing the funding between government schools and non-government schools.