Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I understand the honourable member for Forde said that this was the final chapter in the education revolution. Educational improvements are of course ongoing and a work in progress. I suspect that as long as this country exists we will be constantly endeavouring to improve our education system and to better our curriculum to make sure that young people, who are our nation’s future, do in fact receive the education which will fit them out to be good citizens and will also enable them to get a job and make a productive contribution towards the future of Australia.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 enjoys the support of both sides of the House in principle. Many honourable members would have heard me talk over the years about the importance of a solid education for giving young Australians the very best start on their life’s journey. There is no doubt that the aim of a national curriculum is desirable, and this was a policy initiative of the former Howard-Costello government. It is a policy initiative which I am pleased to see the current government adopting. It is particularly important that young people have a sound education and that that education includes an understanding of the three Rs because there is an undeniable link between being able to read, write and count and obtaining job and being a productive member of the Australian workforce.

Over the years we have had discussion concerning differences in curriculum and education programs from state to state. Most honourable members, like me, have had approaches from people who have moved from one part of Australia to another complaining about the fact that one education system appears to be half a year ahead or behind that in another state. We have seen young people disadvantaged by being put into a class where they are behind or losing a year by being kept back. The former government endeavoured to forge a national curriculum, but in a federation it is always difficult to get everyone to agree. The situation seemed to be that the states agreed in principle that there ought to be a national curriculum but felt that their curriculum was the best curriculum and should be the one adopted right across the nation. The Labor Party was not particularly cooperative at state level when we were in government in helping to bring about a national curriculum and I am hopeful that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 might break that logjam and move the debate forward because, let us face it, the education of our young people is far too important to be a matter of party politics.

One of the legacies of the former government will be that we brought about for more Australian families the economic opportunity to choose the school and education that is most suited to their children. In Australia, we have always had non-government schools and government schools and parents have had a legal right to be able to choose the school that is best for their individual children. But, given the cost of some private schools, many parents do not have that economic choice. What the former Howard-Costello government did was to bring within the economic reach of so many more people the opportunity to choose either a government education or a non-government education—a Catholic education or other independent school education. It is really good that people are able to choose the right school for their children.

On the Sunshine Coast—which, Mr Speaker, you would be aware is the most desirable part of Australia in which to live—we have a range of government and non-government schools. I must say that we have good government schools and good non-government schools. I do not think we really have a bad school of any sort on the Sunshine Coast. Parents are able to vote with their feet and choose the education which is right for their children, and that is fair and appropriate in a democracy in 2008. I mentioned before that there are substantial differences in the educational curriculum and programs in the various states. I think it is just so vital that we put aside all of the differences of the past and that we move forward with this national curriculum.

It may well be that in 1901, when the colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia, people were not terribly mobile. People were born in a particular part of Australia and for generations their families lived in that part of Australia. But increasingly we are part of a global village; people are moving to countries throughout the world. And, more and more, it is common for people to move from one state or territory to another state or territory, and it is only fair and reasonable that their children should not be disadvantaged as a result of what is in many cases quite a natural move from one part of this country to another. Often parents who move from one jurisdiction to another do have the dilemma of a child having to go up to the next grade or go down to the previous one, and it really is unfortunate that so often their children are disadvantaged. And, when the parents move back to where they came from, as often happens, they again have that dilemma to consider.

This bill creates a new government body, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, that has among its tasks the development of a common curriculum across all of the states, which will hopefully put to an end once and for all the situation where children in different states receive different educational programs. This body will also be responsible for the administration and collation of data at a nationwide level as well as setting achievement standards for students, collating and publishing comparative data on schools, providing resources and support for the teaching profession and so on. The idea of a national curriculum is of course, as I mentioned before, something that the previous government initiated.

I just want to digress briefly, Mr Speaker—not in a way that will incur your wrath—to place on record my admiration for the teaching profession and my regret that teachers do not seem to be remunerated anywhere near the level they should be remunerated at given the important role that they play in helping to create productive young Australians. In my own family, I have two brothers-in-law, Mr Jon Hall and Mr Michael Hall, who did various things until their early 30s, when they elected to do teacher training. One has just graduated. This is very important, because it is also vital that we try to encourage more men into teaching, particularly into primary school teaching. With so many families, sadly, confronting family breakdown, often there is the absence of a male role model. If we could encourage more men into teaching, that would be very desirable. I know that that is a view that is shared by both sides of politics. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your indulgence in allowing me to place on the record my admiration for teachers and the fact that I believe that efforts should be made by governments around the country to encourage more men to go into teaching.

The national curriculum aims to bring all students in line in a number of key educational streams: English, mathematics, history and science. This one, common curriculum will help do away with the problems of measuring the relative success and achievements of the states. All of us know about these national testing arrangements and how difficult it is at times to compare results in one part of Australia with results in another. I suppose some might suggest that a national curriculum is one step away from a federal system insofar as we are removing from the individual states the opportunity to determine curricula within that particular state. However, as time goes on we increasingly appreciate it is important to have the same rules right across the nation, and I do not see that anyone could seriously suggest that a national education curriculum would sound the death knell for the Federation. It ought to be recognised, however, that the national curriculum will shift the responsibility for educational programs away from each of the states and onto a central body. The establishment of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority will also ensure that data is generated that will have relevance and value for all states.

As you would be aware, Mr Speaker, this bill does enjoy—as do many other bills debated in the parliament—the support of both sides of the House, but there are some concerns on the part of the opposition that there is no requirement that there be anyone with actual teaching experience on the board of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority or involved in the process of drafting the national curriculum. I would just ask the minister that when she is making appointments she look very closely at the need for there to be people with actual teaching experience. It is important that those who understand what it is like to be in a classroom, what it is like to teach an existing curriculum, have input into what will be the national curriculum right across the country. Such a person, who has in fact had experience at the coalface, would be eminently suitable for working out what changes ought to be made, what ought to be adopted and, indeed, what ought to be rejected for the national curriculum.

There is also concern about the requirement for schools to provide information—to be collected and used in the creation of the curriculum, the drafting of policy and the collating and the processing of data and statistics—including information relating to funding sources. It would certainly be wrong, and I believe most honourable members would accept this, for a school that works hard to generate additional funding to be penalised when it came to the allocation of government funds.

There is also concern in the private school sector that they are in fact being coerced into this national curriculum without actually knowing what it will include. I would like to commend to the House an editorial on page 20 of the West Australian of 20 November 2008 which is headlined ‘Schools are entitled to resist coercion’. It says:

Private schools are perfectly entitled to resist the bullying demand made on them by the Rudd Government to sign up to its so-called education revolution until they know its detail.

By making acceptance of the proposed national curriculum a condition of $28 billion in grants for such schools, the Government has shown its ideological hostility to them.

Details of the national curriculum are still being worked out and private schools do not know what they are being told to accept and how it would affect what they taught and how.

The Government should stop this coercion and accept that schools are entitled to know what’s in the curriculum before they agree to it.

I certainly support that editorial and I consider that there ought to be some flexibility to preserve the diversity we have in the educational marketplace.

In summing up, it is absolutely true that the creation of a national curriculum for schools Australia-wide is a positive move. It will have enormous advantages. The former Liberal-National government had the foresight to initiate the process and create the move towards a standard curriculum. This bill introduces the body responsible for that curriculum and I am very pleased to commend this bill to the chamber.

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