11 minute read
Review says Australian schools fall short on quality and equity
By Jenny Gore, University of Newcastle
The Productivity Commission has just released a review of school standards in Australia. It finds we “persistently fall short” when it comes to providing a high quality and equitable education for all students.
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Coming in at 253 pages, there is a lot to read. And a lot we already know.
But this report comes at a crucial time for Australian education. Outcomes are slipping, despite repeated attempts to improve them. And teacher shortages mean we need urgent measures as well as long-term changes.
Why do we have this review?
In April this year, former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg asked the Productivity Commission to review the National School Reform Agreement. This sets out nationally agreed initiatives for the next five years between the federal government, states and territories.
It is focused on three main areas: supporting students, supporting teaching and improving the data we have on schools in Australia. The next agreement is due to be signed in late 2023.
Last month, the commission released its interim findings ahead of the final report to be delivered in December, when education ministers will begin hashing out a new agreement for the next five years.
What’s in the report?
There is little in this report we have not seen before. But the interim report certainly raises many key issues. The report found too many students are falling behind. Every year, between five and nine per cent of Australian students do not meet year-level expectations in literacy or numeracy.
Student well-being is of significant concern, with one in five young people aged 11-17 reporting high levels of psychological distress, even before the pandemic.
Despite talk about improving results for Aboriginal students and those in rural and remote areas, and students with disabilities, it says, “governments are yet to demonstrate results in improving equity”.
It calls for new strategies, developed with students, parents and communities, to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We already know teacher shortages are an issue – and state and federal governments are working separately on a new workforce plan for teachers, also due in December.
Additionally, the report found teachers are overworked with “low-value tasks” and are burned out. Work-life balance and well-being were the key reasons why teachers wanted to leave the profession.
What can we do?
There are no quick or easy fixes. But here are three practical solutions government can adopt now to improve the school system for teachers and students.
1. Quality teaching rounds
The commission’s report says quality teaching is key to improving student outcomes. It recommends teachers are given more time for planning and professional development.
The report also highlighted my work with colleagues on “quality teaching rounds” professional development. This approach brings teachers together to learn from each other, improve their teaching and lift student outcomes.
It is centred on three big ideas: a deep understanding of important knowledge, positive classrooms that boost learning and connecting learning to students’ lives and the wider world.
Our evidence shows this approach has positive effects on teaching quality, teacher morale and student achievement, with greater impact in disadvantaged schools.
This shows clear potential to narrow equity gaps and genuinely support teachers.
2. Support throughout teaching careers
The report acknowledges that school leadership roles are becoming more complex and demanding. It calls for the creation of a specific stream for aspiring school leaders.
This would see potential principals and other leaders (such as year-level and subject leaders) identified early in their careers and given specific support.
We also need a clear pathway from teaching degrees at university to induction in schools and ongoing development throughout teachers’ careers. This would mean teachers and school leaders are better equipped to do their jobs – and want to stay in the profession.
3. More funding for research
The report highlights the need for more evidence about what is working and what is not. It points out that previously agreed reforms for national data systems have stalled.
More than just creating systems of data, true reform requires rigorous research into all aspects of education. Yet education does not receive the research dollars it deserves. For example, in the most recent round of the Australian Research Council’s discovery project grants, education received less than one per cent of approved funds – some A$2.5 million of the A$258 million allocated.
If the government wants change, investing in educational research must be part of the next agreement.
What happens now?
Education in Australia has a history of reviews, reports, plans and great intentions.
But we are constantly let down by implementation of recommendations. Partly it’s due to organisational complexity. Not only do the federal and state governments have different responsibilities in education, but there is a gap between policy and what happens on the ground in classrooms. But with a new government and universal attention to the problem of teacher shortages, there is a rare opportunity now for Australian schools.
We have a chance to make changes that genuinely support teachers and lift student outcomes.
Jenny Gore is Laureate Professor of Education and Director of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre at the University of Newcastle. This article was first published at The Conversation website and is reproduced here with permission. The opinions expressed in this article are that of the author and do not wholly or necessarily reflect any official policies or positions of the AEU or SSTUWA.
Inequitable school funding creates inequitable outcomes
The Australian Education Union (AEU) is calling for a renewed focus on increasing public school funding, following the release of the interim report of the Productivity Commission’s review of the National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA).
“The Review finds the current NSRA has weaknesses that undermine its effectiveness in lifting student outcomes and that promoting equity in Australian schools remains a key challenge,” AEU Federal Deputy President Meredith Peace said.
“While the Review was prevented from considering funding, there can be no doubt. The current NSRA is failing to meet its goals because of the deliberate underfunding of Australia’s public schools by the previous federal government. “Currently, every public school student in Australia is missing out on an average $1,800 in funding every year. An overwhelming majority of public schools across the country have been left without the minimum funding required
by the standard set under the Australian Education Act.
“It is no surprise that Australian students are struggling and that there are problems delivering an equitable education system when inequity was deliberately baked into the arrangements.
“We agree with the Review’s suggested focus for the next agreement, including addressing education workforce shortages, the unsustainably high workloads experienced by teachers, principals and education support staff, and student well-being support and student equity.
“However, these outcomes can only be delivered if public schools are funded to do so.”
The NSRA is the foundation for bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and the states and territories, setting out goals for improved student outcomes and minimum funding contributions. The Productivity Commission recently completed a review of the existing NSRA, which is due to expire at the end of 2023.
Negotiations for new school funding arrangements between the states and territories and the Commonwealth are expected to commence before the end of the year.
We need to define what equity means for schools
Dr Pasi Sahlberg Southern Cross University
The Productivity Commission has released a major report on how to improve Australia’s school and university sectors. “Education is ripe for disruption,” deputy chair Alex Robson said.
The commission suggests longer school days, online classes taught by qualified teachers and streaming students into ability groups to improve Australia’s educational performance. But while these ideas may work well for some students, they won’t necessarily work for all.
If Australia is serious about improving its education system, we need to look at improving the whole system, for all students. This means we need a clear definition of what equity means for schools.
Why we need to focus on equity
About three years ago, all state and territory governments made a commitment to promote “excellence” and “equity” in Australian education in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration. This sets out a “vision for a world class education system” and is supposed to guide education policy-making and related education reforms in states, territories and the whole country. The “excellence” component is easy to understand. It normally refers to the quality of measured student learning outcomes in school. But “equity” remains poorly defined and inadequately included and monitored in current education policies. Educational equity is often described using terms such as fairness, inclusion, social justice, non-discrimination and equal opportunity. These are worthy principles but do not provide a guide for what equity means in practice, how it should be monitored and how progress should be measured.
Without a commonly shared definition of educational equity, it is impossible to make progress. It allows governments to scapegoat schools for widening achievement gaps and growing learning inequalities, while nobody else is held accountable for improving equity.
The next National School Reform Agreement
Australian states and territories are about to begin negotiations for the next National School Reform Agreement, which sets out how to lift student outcomes and improve education systems performance from 2024.
As part of this process, the Productivity Commission’s review of the existing agreement was published in September. This interim report (the final report is due in December) correctly states equity is one of four major policy challenges facing Australia’s school system. But when trying to explain what equity means, it does not clearly address what equity targets would look like and how they would be monitored.
The interim report claims equity is already defined in the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Education and its successor, the Mparntwe Declaration. But there is no clear, useful definition written in any of these declarations.
Instead, the report says equity “can be thought of as recognising that some students may have different educational needs and desired outcomes”. These are hardly insightful or practical guides to education policy, let alone school improvement. Without a definition, the next agreement will not be able to make Australian school education more equitable.
How should we define equity
Our submission to the Productivity Commission’s school agreement inquiry proposes a clear definition of educational equity. We argue equity has two dimensions: individual and social. That is, equity should involve a minimum level educational attainment for all students, and similar education outcomes for different social groups. An individual dimension of equity in education means that all children receive an education that enables them to fully participate in adult society in a way of their choosing. Today in Australia and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, this requires that all children should complete Year 12 or its equivalent amount of education (for example TAFE). We are far from that goal. The Year 7/8 to Year 12 full-time apparent retention rates in 2021 were 83 per cent for all students, and 59 per cent for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The existing schools agreement says 96 per cent of students should complete Year 12 by 2031. A social dimension of equity in education means students from different social groups achieve similar average outcomes, and a similar distribution range of these outcomes.
The benchmark for educational equity is the achievement and attainment of the most successful social group of students. The OECD’s PISA (international student assessment) results, our own NAPLAN data and Year 12 examination results show this benchmark is students from high socio-economic status (SES) families.
For example, the PISA 2018 results showed 15-year-old Australian students from the highest SES quartile were nearly three years ahead of students from the lowest SES quartile in reading, and four years ahead of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
An analysis published recently by former principal and author Chris Bonnor found 60 per cent of the highest achieving students in Year 12 in NSW’s Higher School Certificate exams are concentrated in the most advantaged schools. Equitable education would set up the expectation Indigenous, socioeconomically disadvantaged, rural and remote students achieve similar education outcomes to affluent students.
There is no reason to consider, for example, that some groups of students are innately less intelligent than their peers from well-off privileged families.
Why we need equity
Equity in education is fundamental to an egalitarian, democratic nation. Inability to define equity in education clearly will ensure we will continue to make little or no progress in keeping the promise of equitable education for every child.
So, defining equity well is the first step towards achieving it. The existing inequities in education are also a measure of the potential to increase productivity and economic prosperity. Investing in reducing inequity promises a way to overcome the current shortage of workforce skills and prepare the nation for uncertainty.
Dr Pasi Sahlberg is an internationally renowned Finish educator and author. He is currently Professor of Education at Southern Cross University in New South Wales. This article was published at The Conversation website and is reproduced here with permission. The opinions expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect any official policies or positions of the SSTUWA or AEU.
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