Australia’s education system is failing students despite $100bn spending

Politicians are skilled at setting expensive policy targets that sit way beyond their terms of office — and for which they are unlikely ever to be held accountable.  

In 2013, the nine federal, state and territory education ministers set a target for “Australia considered to be a high quality and high equity schooling system by international standards by 2025″.  

Twelve years later, only a Christmas miracle could have made that happen.  

As the end of the year looms, is anyone auditing that 2025 target? Taxpayers know all too well that massive increases in education funding (approaching $100 billion a year) have had little impact on results.  

The spending has not resolved concerns about Australian academic standards, curriculum content, teacher training, assessment and reporting practices, or education research.  

National and international data, analysed in countless government reports and other papers, show too few Australian students demonstrating proficiency in English and Mathematics, Science, and Civics and Citizenship. 

Too many are disengaged and ill-disciplined. And the proportion choosing academically-demanding subjects — such as high-level mathematics and sciences, history, and foreign languages — is low and shrinks every year; in part because they know they can ‘game the system’ via less demanding courses.  

Although Australia’s expenditure on primary, secondary and tertiary education exceeds the OECD average of 4.9% of gross domestic product, academic and equity gaps are widening.  

Students who live in rural and regional areas, come from lower socio-economic or Indigenous backgrounds, or are disabled or otherwise disadvantaged, are little closer in outcomes to their metropolitan peers than a decade ago. 

The educational achievement of boys and men is falling behind that of girls and women. Reading, an aspect of education that has failed generations of students in English-speaking countries, is particularly problematic for boys. 

University faculties responsible for training Australian teachers have long been distracted by their own ideological hallucinations.  

Unsurprisingly, the take-up of alternatives to mainstream education is increasing exponentially; including low-fee non-government schools, classical and liberal arts programs, and home schooling. 

Recent reforms give some cause for optimism, with the term ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’ reinvigorating discussion about what students learn.  

The accompanying focus on ‘explicit teaching’ emphasises step-by-step instruction and careful monitoring of students’ progress, in contrast to decades of fads that frequently failed to cement understanding and ultimately only served to undermine the role of the teacher.  

These are urgent, utilitarian fixes. Politicians, education bureaucrats, consultants and others describe the latest reforms as evidence-based, grounded in growing understanding of the science of learning.  

Who knew that evidence was so important, especially in education? Even more importantly, how did earlier reformers manage to avoid that particular requirement while foisting experimental methodologies on generations of Australian teachers and students?  

For those of us who questioned unsubstantiated reforms and subsequently left the classroom, it is hard to watch. This is an epic, systemic failure of accountability.  

Australia’s federal system of government, which devolves responsibility for schooling to the eight states and territories, entrenches practical and philosophical obstacles to improving quality and equity.  

School leaders and teachers are now part of a duplicative, multi-layered structure comprising state, territory and national education bureaucracies and other organisations, creating a complex web of regulations and expectations. 

The documents that purport to guide policies and practices (such as the Alice Springs (Mpwarntwe) Declaration, the Australian Curriculum, and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers) offer only vague national goals and wordy motherhood statements. 

That lack of clarity compounds the challenges of improving quality and equity in eight jurisdictions that remain fiercely protective of their educational autonomy.  

So significant are the jurisdictional sensitivities around students’ academic achievement and the daily realities of schools, it is hard to envisage the necessary strategic shifts ever occurring. 

Quality and equity can only thrive in sunlight, but it is impossible to get a clear picture of student achievement across the curriculum and across the country.  

There is no way to measure the performance of all young learners at the end of primary school (thus no nationally consistent measurement of their readiness to begin secondary school). 

Nor is there any externally validated means of measuring the academic progress of all young Australians by the end of the compulsory years of schooling. Each state and territory continues to make its own arrangements for Years 11 and 12. 

Improving quality and equity requires smart, fast rethinking of goals and strategies. There’s too little sign of this happening soon. 

Maybe next Christmas? 

Dr Fiona Mueller is an Adjunct Fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies and was a teacher for more than 20 years.