FREEDOM OF CHOICE: FOR WHOM? A POINT OF VIEW

This paper is an examination of the rationale for the policy of supplying public funds for the support of schools run by private organizations. The example of the policy chosen for discussion is a current proposal of the Australian Schools Commission. It is noted that policies of this sort are generally defended by reference to a principle of freedom of choice. However there can be a conflict between freedom of choice for parents and freedom of choice for children in that parents sometimes exercise their freedom to choose schools which will reinforce their own influence and help to bring up their children in a predetermined mould with the same ideological beliefs and personal values as themselves. Public funding of private schools, it is argued, extends the freedom of parents to choose from a range of schools, but the effect is often to limit the opportunity of children to grow up free to make their own ideological and life‐style decisions. It is suggested that if one values this latter type of freedom one ought consistently to support pluralist public schools in which a wider variety of values and points of view are represented.