Gonski 2.0 cash should be used to train teachers - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Gonski 2.0 cash should be used to train teachers

teacher school learning teachingWith $23.5 billion of extra Gonski 2.0 funding to splash around, schools will be drawing up shopping lists. But what should be on them? The temptation might be to splurge on technology, but computers, tablets and coding are not the solution to Australia’s education woes.

We’ve been bombarded by platitudes of ‘21st century learning’ and ‘preparing kids for the jobs of the future that don’t exist yet’. However, while it’s fine to hypothesise about what future classrooms could look like, we need to be guided by the evidence on what actually works.

Australian schools already have many more computers and much higher use of technology compared to the rest of the world, yet this hasn’t helped to stop our declining performance in maths, science and reading. The data indicates the use of education technology has only minor and inconsistent effects on student results — and it is also expensive and can become obsolete very quickly.

Further, there’s even some evidence to suggest investments in education technology have a negative impact on academic achievement in schools. Just because technology increases workplace efficiency doesn’t mean it necessarily has a productive effect in the complicated area of school education.

For example, the Rudd and Gillard governments’ Digital Education Revolution Program —whereby all students from Year 9 to Year 12 received laptops — cost $2 billion taxpayer dollars between 2008 and 2013 but had no positive impact on student results. While intuition suggested there would be a benefit, evidence showed there wasn’t.

The triumph of intuition over evidence in recent education debates is part of the reason why Australia’s literacy and numeracy results have declined in recent years, despite massive increases in government spending on schools.

Take class sizes. Superficially, it would seem to make sense that smaller classes will mean teachers are better able to cater for the needs of individual students, all else being equal. But the truth is that ‘all else’ is rarely equal in education — class size reduction is expensive and has only minor positive effects. Some of the top-performing countries, like Singapore and Japan, have much larger class sizes than Australia.

Ultimately, teacher quality is far more important than class size. Most students tend to learn better in a relatively large class with a great teacher rather than in a smaller class with a mediocre teacher.

So how should schools invest the extra Gonski 2.0 cash? For a start, it should always be in evidence-based, cost-effective programs and policies.

First, give teachers fewer classes and more time outside the classroom. Australian teachers typically spend at least an hour extra teaching per day compared to high-achieving countries. The more time teachers have to prepare and review lessons, and collaborate with other teachers, the better their teaching will be.

The OECD recently suggested Australia give teachers less class time so they can focus more on high-quality teaching — and the cost and need for more teachers of this approach could be offset by increasing class sizes.

Second, we need to address the slide in literacy and numeracy. Intervention to help students who are underachieving in literacy and numeracy is far more effective in early primary years than in later schooling. Teaching reading is absolutely vital in the early years, but teachers are not equipped with the skills necessary to do so effectively.

Phonics — the practice of teaching students how to read by linking sounds to letters, to sound out written words — is a necessary component of effective reading instruction, but is not practiced consistently in Australian schools. A recent systemic literature review in Australia found new teaching graduates feel unprepared to teach phonics. Primary schools should fill this knowledge gap by training teachers in effective phonics instruction.

Third, there is a strong need for teachers to receive classroom management training. Australia has relatively high levels of student classroom misbehaviour compared to the OECD and other high-achieving countries. This is partly because university teacher education degrees do not consistently prepare new teachers with adequate classroom management skills. Again, schools should make up for this by training teachers in evidence-based classroom management techniques.

A final necessary, overarching, reform is teacher training. We currently have an absurd situation where it is compulsory for teachers to periodically attend professional development as part of the national teaching standards, but the professional learning providers are not obliged to ensure the content delivered is evidence-based (except in NSW and the ACT). States and territories should have more consistent and transparent standards for providers of teacher professional development.

Unless we bring evidence back to the forefront of school spending, the extra $23.5 billion of Gonski 2.0 funding will be frittered away on measures that fail to improve student outcomes.

Blaise Joseph is an education policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies and a former teacher. He is the author of Getting the most out of Gonski 2.0: The evidence base for school investments.