Monday, 9 October 2006

Australia urgently needs to debate and resolve some fundamental questions about the future of school education.

Do we want to educate our children mainly in government-assisted fee-paying private schools, based on an exclusive clientele identified by socio-economic status, religion, ethnicity or some other dimension? Or do we want them mainly to be in inclusive government-funded public schools, mixing with children from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences?

Is education a positional good, which may be purchased to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others? Or is it a public good, which governments have a responsibility to provide and quality-assure?

These issues are not being tackled in any systematic way. Budgetary decisions with profound implications for schooling are made in the absence of agreed national policy.

The council of the Australian College of Education has reached unanimous agreement on a set of propositions which point the way forward.

Among these are:

There should be equal educational opportunity, and potential equality of outcomes, for all young Australians. Education is the foundation upon which the character of the nation is built. Governments should support a strong system of public schooling, as well as a wide provision of non-government schools. Differential funding levels will be needed to provide equal opportunity for all students, based on socio-demographic variables and levels of educational disadvantage. The choice between government and non-government schooling should not be based on the fact that government schools are underfunded. That is, our national landscape for the provision of schooling should not be the product of neo-Darwinian free-market forces but the result of principled management by state and federal governments.

I suggest that the national debate about school education should begin with three key principles, each relating to resources.

First, the overriding priority of national and state governments should be to provide universal access to first-class public education while respecting the right of parents to choose non-government schools and supporting them on the basis of need.

I do not accept the view that the Commonwealth has particular responsibility for non-government schools and the states and territories for government schools. Our Australian national identity has been built in the classrooms of inclusive public schools for more than 150 years.

I support the right of parents to choose non-government schooling and the funding of those schools on the basis of need.

But parents should never be in a position that they must choose private schooling because public schools are underfunded. And while supporting choice, I believe there are powerful educational reasons for exercising that choice in favour of inclusive rather than exclusive education.

Second, public funding across different schools and sectors should be applied equitably to meet the needs of all students and have regard to the total level of resources available for students.

The recent federal budget provided a 9.3 per cent real funding increase to non-government schools, while increases to government schools merely kept pace with cost indexation. Federal Government funding for non-government schools has ballooned from $3.36 billion last year to an estimated $4.74 billion in 2004-05.

Most non-government schools are supported by recurrent public subsidy, direct and indirect, to a level equal to 80-90 per cent of average recurrent government school expenditures per student - on top of which is added income from school fees and often from trust funds, foundations and investments.

Third, the states and the Commonwealth must ensure that school resources are adequate to achieve the national goals for schooling for all young Australians, in every public and private school.

All Australian governments are party to the National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century (the Adelaide Declaration 1999). It is a curriculum guarantee for all children. It cannot be delivered under present financial arrangements to the required levels of quality and standards of equity unless the fundamental questions about schooling provision are confronted and resolved.

Strong support for the public school system, attention to issues of equity and differential provision, and sustained focus on quality in the curriculum - these are the principles around which the national debate on schooling must take place.

Dr Ken Boston has just resigned after 10 years as head of the New South Wales Education Department.
12:34:34 PM    

trackback []

Choosing a school in a knowledge Vacuum.

The first is the fact that the differences within any given group are always greater than the differences between two groups. The fact the differences within a group are bigger than differences between groups also applies to schools. There is very hard data showing "individual schools" are much more influential than "school sector" on the final ENTER/TES/OP results. In other words selecting or not selecting a school because it is (or is not) "Government" or "Catholic" or "Independent" is totally inappropriate. It is the individual school that counts, nothing else.

Source: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3821
12:08:10 PM    

trackback []