Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to comment on the previous speaker’s comments on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. It was a very impassioned speech in many ways. To allay some of his fears, I will say that, having been a former educator, the process of curriculum development is far more complex than people simply directing curriculum in a certain way. The ethics that drive professionals in academia and that particular industry are very important to the way that we as a nation and certainly those academics working in the field develop curriculum. I take on board the comments of the member for Cowan and, as I said, I would like to allay his fears.

Essentially this bill is about establishing a body to oversee the introduction of a process. So really it is a long way yet to how we as a government will establish in the longer term what we are considering will be a national curriculum. It is very good to see that this is another Rudd initiative—our election commitment to bring a national curriculum onto the table for discussion, and much of the debate is going to continue with the movement of this bill through the House. Being a former educator and the father of four children, my involvement has been at many levels. Two of my sons are now well into their 20s and are moving into the latter part of their lives and into the further training that they have taken on board. But I still have two teenage daughters who are going through the school system in Queensland.

The wonderful thing about this approach is that it is about a national approach; it is about part of our push for a cooperative federalism model that looks at how we build efficiencies into the system. It is wonderful to see that this bill talks about the establishment of a particular body, a national authority, that will oversee the delivery of Australia’s first national curriculum. I say, as the bill states, ‘the first national curriculum’, but it is not new in terms of Labor policy and the way that we are approaching the establishment of this particular body.

As I said, as a former educator—back in the early nineties—I had a lot of involvement in the vocational education and training system. Those academics, educators and people who have been involved in the delivery of education and curriculum development will remember well, I am sure, the Hawke and Keating period, when there was an understanding that we had to standardise a number of things, and education has always been on the agenda; in fact, for Labor it has never left our agenda. Look at the introduction of the National Training System in the vocational areas; the push in 1992 to establish ANTA, the Australian National Training Authority; and the understanding that, if we were going to get our workforce engaged and trained and increase productivity, it was very important that we as a nation should not only have people who were trained well and in an efficient manner but also have recognition at the national level. We have all heard the stories—certainly I have in my lifetime and in my work in the field of vocational education—that, if you were engaging a plumber or electrician in the state of Western Australia, that same plumber or electrician would not have the ability to work in Victoria or Queensland, simply because of licensing laws. So there were two levels of bureaucracy; one was about the skills base and the skills development that people had and the other was about the licensing of those skills.

The Australian National Training Authority, which was set up by the Keating government in 1992, was based on an understanding and recognition that we needed to standardise, starting somewhere in our educational cycle. The member for Cowan was concerned about a whole range of influences, but I tell the House that, when we look at the curriculum cycle and the development of curriculum, we have a whole range of well documented processes, tried and proven, and a situational analysis is the very start of that. It is about looking at and understanding what you are trying to achieve and what the particular curriculum is trying to have as an outcome.

Many people would forget the push for, and establishment of, the Australian National Training Authority—ANTA—the National Training Board and even the Australian Qualifications Framework, which all made up a standard system in the area of vocational education and training. In fact, there were almost 12 years of the Howard government dismantling bit by bit the system that we had in place. The member for Dunkley mentioned the Mayer competencies earlier tonight. They were very much about the improvement and changes to the vocational education and training system at the time, with carryover effects into general education.

People might say: ‘What is the difference between education and training if we have a range of standards at the vocational education and training level which feed into and work inside and outside other qualification fields? Why do we need to make a distinction?’ Probably the best way of explaining it is to understand in the simplest terms what education and training may be. I will paint this scenario: suppose you are at home as a parent, and Tom and Mary come home from school and say, ‘Mum and Dad, we’re having drug education tomorrow.’ You would say as a parent: ‘Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that a responsible curriculum? Isn’t it a wonderful thing for our children to understand the dangers and concerns of such a scourge in our society?’ However, if Tom and Mary come home and say, ‘Mum and Dad, we have drug training tomorrow,’ people might then have a different understanding and might not understand the difference between education and training.

My comments are about the establishment of a framework that is still well involved in this country, albeit much at the expense of the states moving forward and progressing. What was established was a range of national standards under the Australian National Training Authority and the National Training Board and through the Australian Qualifications Framework. In fact, with that framework most people would understand today as they work through their educational life that they can bring themselves up to a certain level and work towards a university qualification. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Debate (on motion by Mr Morrison) adjourned.

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