Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In her second reading contribution on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

This bill is yet another illustration of how this government is getting on with the job of delivering an education revolution to Australia.

The fact of the matter is one year to the day into the Rudd government we have seen the education revolution become a hopeless failure—a 24-hour uprising where the revolutionaries have skived off the barricades to have a good night’s sleep at home. It is a revolution born in spin and propaganda, devoid of substance and lacking in real delivery. The abject failure of these central measures of the education revolution has been a major disappointment to parents, students and teachers alike.

We all remember the election time one-liners: a computer on every desk, a trades training centre in every school. It was one year and 10 days ago at the ALP campaign launch on 14 November 2007 that the Prime Minister promised the following:

Labor will undertake a groundbreaking reform by providing for every Australian secondary school student in Years 9 to 12 access to their own computer at school.

He held up a laptop computer. All of the weasel words in the world cannot get those words out of the public record. If he did not want to promise each student their own computer, he should not have done so. The government has abandoned that promise. After 12 months of Labor, less than 10 per cent of public schools have benefited from the computers in schools program. The target ratio has gone from being a computer for every student to a computer for every second student.

Meanwhile, the computers in schools program is a centrepiece not only of the failure of the education revolution but also of the failure of another of the Prime Minister’s key election promises: cooperative federalism. Cooperative federalism only ever had a hope of working if both parties came to the table with goodwill and reasonable expectations. In relation to computers in schools, the Rudd government went to the COAG table with an election promise and then asked the states to pay for it. The Deputy Prime Minister has spent most of this year arguing with the states over who is paying for the on-costs of the computers in schools: the installation, IT support, the software, the networking, the staff training—everything that makes the computers work. By not meeting these extra costs, the government is providing only 20 to 25 per cent of the funds needed to pay for his election promise, demanding that the states, local schools or even parents find the money to make the computers run once they have been delivered.

It is a nice trick to get elected on a promise of an education revolution and hide in the fine print that someone else is going to pay for it. If only the Howard government had had that opportunity. The member for Higgins might have had a much easier job over 12 years if only we had realised in 1995 that the secret to government is to make somebody else pay. Can you imagine? With the 1996 budget facing a $10 billion black hole and $96 billion of debt, the member for Higgins could have sat back, relaxed and said that the New South Wales Carr government was going to have to take care of it. The tough decisions of government would have been so much easier if only we had asked someone else to pay for them. The expensive business of government comes much cheaper if only you ask someone else to make the tough decisions.

But this fantasy approach to politics only exists for the Deputy Prime Minister. The states are not buying into it and schools are not buying into it. That is why, when round 2 of the computers program closed on 9 October, many schools indicated that they would not be applying because of the additional costs associated with the computers. The New South Wales government instructed its schools not to apply for funding in the second round. Other states are taking the computers but only to replace old ones so as to cut down on their costs. This will do nothing to reduce the ratio of computers to students to the new goal of two to one let alone the election promise of one to one. The states and the schools are not to blame for this state of affairs. They were not the ones making the promise to Australian voters that they would put a computer on every student’s desk.

The computers in schools program is not the only plank in the barricade of Labor’s education revolution that is falling apart under the weight of mild investigation. Labor’s election policy document proudly proclaimed that we would see new trade centres built in all of Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools. One year on, we again find that Labor have shifted their rhetoric, because they cannot deliver on their election promise. As the funding provided to each school is so limited—an average of $900,000 to each school—schools are forced to pool their funds to build something that resembles a trades training centre. The Deputy Prime Minister tells us that every school will have the opportunity to be involved in a trades training centre, but their promise was a centre in each of Australia’s secondary schools—not one in every 10th school.

Meanwhile, the government has withdrawn support for the Australian technical colleges, a program up and running and proving successful in many communities around Australia. One particularly important aspect of the Australian technical colleges was that they were set up to be led by industry. The importance of business being intimately involved in schooling was highlighted yesterday by Rupert Murdoch’s Boyer lecture. It is remarkable that the Acting Prime Minister would laud Mr Murdoch’s speech and put the blame for our school system’s failings on the former government while it is her government that is abolishing the only program that is really operating along the lines suggested by Mr Murdoch.

The former government increased funding for state government schools in every budget, delivering a funding increase of 70 per cent in real terms between 1996 and 2007. It put the interests of Australian children and their parents above those of the state education bureaucracies and teacher unions. It enhanced the capacity for parents to choose between public and private schools for their children. It established a better funding formula for Catholic and independent schools which ensured that Catholic and independent schools drawing students from the neediest communities received more funds. It ended the Keating government’s new schools policy that had placed severe restrictions on establishing new non-government schools. In attaching conditions to Commonwealth education funding to the states, the former government also enabled the introduction of literacy and numeracy testing for all students in years 3, 5 and 7. Literacy and numeracy testing trials were also introduced for year 9 students in 2007.

While the public school system is primarily the responsibility of the state governments, the former coalition government’s record is a proud one of engagement, providing record levels of support for teachers, students and parents alike. On the other hand, Kevin Rudd’s education revolution is creating winners and losers, particularly in primary schools, where Labor has cut funding by abandoning the coalition’s $1.2 billion Investing in Our Schools Program. Schools relied on this funding to make up for state government shortfalls and their failure to invest in school infrastructure. I note the member for Canning is in the House, and he, like I and many other members of the parliament, would have been to many openings of Investing in Our Schools programs, which were very popular and very welcomed, particularly by principals and governing councils in primary schools around the country. It is worth noting that both the trades training centres and the computers in schools policies only benefit secondary schools. Only $800,000 will go to primary schools—the first sector up against the wall in Ms Gillard’s revolution.

In its first budget, Labor cut almost $400 million in specific programs targeted at improving standards in literacy and numeracy. The $700 Even Start tuition vouchers program for students who failed to meet the minimum literacy and numeracy benchmarks has been scrapped, the $70 million Summer Schools for Teachers program has been scrapped and the $50,000 rewards for schools that improve literacy and numeracy test results program has also been scrapped. Far from bringing an education revolution, Labor has increased spending on education by less than one per cent. It has simply replaced successful and popular Howard government programs with new bureaucracies delivering the failing computers in schools and trades training centre programs.

The development of a national curriculum is another endeavour that was begun under the Howard government. However, there are some issues with the direction the curriculum has taken under Labor, which I will come to presently. Earlier this year, Labor appointed an interim National Curriculum Board to work on its development of this legislation as it was being prepared. That board appointed working groups in each of the four subject areas being covered by the curriculum: mathematics, English, the sciences and history. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill establishes a new Commonwealth body, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, ACARA, to develop and administer the new national curriculum and collect data, providing analysis and research to governments. The government had initially committed separate funding to develop a new national curriculum board of $20 million and $17.2 million for a new independent national schools assessment and data centre. This bill aggregates that funding and incorporates the intended functions of both proposed bodies within one body, ACARA. This new authority will assume powers over curriculum and assessment that are currently with state governments and it will be further empowered by its secondary role as the primary data analysis and research centre in relation to student assessment.

ACARA’s clearest role is the development of a national curriculum. The opposition supports the concept of a national curriculum, but in the hands of the Acting Prime Minister we are concerned that what should have been a useful framework for teachers, schools, families and students to work within is in danger of becoming increasingly straddled with left-wing dogma. It would be a disaster for Australian students if the Labor Party and its friends in left-wing academia used the national curriculum as an opportunity to hijack schooling in Australia. ACARA has a sincere responsibility to ensure that a truly world-class curriculum is developed free from ideological bias and with a strong foundation in the basics that have been neglected for too many children in recent decades.

Our evidence up to this point on how the curriculum is shaping up is limited to the framing documents released for discussion some weeks ago. I do not wish to dwell on the matter, but the documents have been released for public discussion and the body being established by this bill will be responsible for their further development, so it would be remiss not to make some further observations. Points 10 and 11 of the initial advice document relating to the history curriculum comprise a long list of the key concepts that a national curriculum needs to deal with. The opposition noted at the time the framers’ omission of any recognition of the importance to Australian society of Western civilisation, scientific discovery, the Judaeo-Christian tradition in our community, our commitment to the defence of freedom and the benefits that our British heritage has brought to us, such as our commitment to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. We are pleased to note that in the framing document released much more recently a number of the opposition’s concerns in this area have been dealt with. I find it odd that these fundamental principles of our history were relegated to secondary importance originally. We will be keeping close watch to ensure their important place in our history is not threatened.

The opposition is also concerned about any move away from a central focus on Australian history incorporating an intelligent balance between both our Aboriginal heritage and the history of European settlement. We will monitor closely the development of the national history curriculum and encourage wide consultation. We cannot allow historical perspective to be captured by a small group of ideologues.

Of equal concern to the quality of the curriculum is that it be sensibly applied, and we are far from convinced of that at the moment. We have seen in the Schools Assistance Bill that the Labor Party wishes to mandate the introduction of the national curriculum before the end of the funding quadrennium in non-government schools as a condition for non-government schools to receive funding from 1 January next year, even though we have little idea yet what the national curriculum will actually look like.

The Acting Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to confirm that schools currently delivering alternative, internationally recognised curricula will be able to continue to do so. This puts at risk curricula that are designed for high-achieving students and special students, and curricula based on educational philosophies that parents may choose as the most appropriate for their children. It also potentially puts at risk those faith based schools that teach faith based components in addition to their current state curricula. The Acting Prime Minister has refused to give comfort to these schools by accepting the opposition’s amendment to her Schools Assistance Bill to remove the mandatory application of the unwritten national curriculum. Alternatively, she could amend her bill to allow application of the national curriculum or an ‘approved equivalent’ or similar legislative language. Instead, in a speech on 10 November, the Acting Prime Minister deferred decisions about whether alternative curriculum based schools will be able to continue under ACARA. This means that under the current government ACARA will have the final say over whether the following curricula are allowed to continue: International Baccalaureate, University of Cambridge international examination schools, Montessori schools, Steiner schools, Christian schools, Islamic and Jewish schools and so on.

There is a further issue of some significance with which the government is yet to grapple, and that is what happens to the substantial areas of curriculum that are not flagged for consideration by ACARA. Geography and languages have been mooted as future additions, but music, drama, physical education, technical education and a stream of other curriculum areas that are vitally important to the health of our education system will not be dealt with by ACARA at all. It would be of great concern if future funding in areas like teacher support and training neglected these important areas because they missed out on inclusion in the national curriculum.

It is also worth noting that for as long as these areas stay outside the national curriculum, the state governments will all have to continue their current frameworks of curriculum and assessment authorities in order to support these subject choices. A national curriculum designed to improve our system must not result in a weakening of the subjects not included in it, or it will have failed. And a national curriculum should not result in increased, unnecessary duplication of resources and endeavour, or else it will have failed. Again I advise that the opposition is sceptical and we will be keeping a very close eye on the government’s progress in this area.

For a national curriculum to succeed, ACARA and the government will need to be able to convince each state education department, each state government, and the non-government sector that the national curriculum will not interfere in those aspects of their present curriculum of which they are most proud and that in all other aspects the national curriculum will be a superior curriculum to their current curriculum. Members may draw their own conclusions as to how successful the government will be in this endeavour.

In relation to the detail of how ACARA has been set up, I will make some observations for the record while indicating that the opposition will not oppose this bill. I draw attention to the list of ACARA’s functions detailed in section 6 which says:

The functions of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority are to:

(a)

Develop and administer a national school curriculum, including content of the curriculum and achievement standards, for school subjects specified in the Charter (maths, English, the sciences and history to begin with, to also include geography and languages in a second phase); and

(b)

Develop and administer national assessments; and

(c)

Collect, manage and analyse student assessment data and other data relating to schools and comparative school performance; and

(d)

Facilitate information sharing arrangements between Australian government bodies in relation to the collection, management and analysis of school data; and

(e)

Publish information relating to school education, including information relating to comparative school performance; and

(f)

Provide school curriculum resource services, educational research services and other related services; and

(g)

Provide information, resources, support and guidance to the teaching profession; and

(h)

Perform such other functions that are conferred on it by, or under, this Act or any other Commonwealth Act; and

(g)

Perform such other functions that are ancillary or incidental to the functions mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

The ACARA board will include a representative from each state and territory as well as the Commonwealth, and representatives from the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Schools Council of Australia. In addition there will be a chair and a deputy chair appointed by the ministerial council. Members will be limited to a three-year term and maximum aggregated service length will be six years. ACARA will be subject to direction from the ministerial council.

In appointing members of the board, section 14 requires that the ministerial council ensures that members of the board:

… collectively possess an appropriate balance of professional expertise in:

(i)

matters relating to school curriculum; and

(ii)

school assessment and data management; and

(iii)

analysis and reporting in relation to school performance;

(iv)

financial and commercial matters in relation to the management of educational organisations; and

(v)

corporate governance.

Given that none of the five criteria for the make-up of the board will require that anyone who has ever been a teacher should be on the board, it is particularly important that practising teachers should be consulted extensively in the committees and working groups under the ACARA board. I find this omission unfortunate and it is reflective of this government’s lack of appreciation for the central and overwhelming importance of the teaching profession. In my experience, teachers who actually deal with students have a much greater appreciation of what works and what does not than do research academics looking in from the outside.

According to section 40, subsection (1), the data collection and analysis arm of ACARA is able to collect detailed information from schools so long as that information is necessary for, and directly related to, any of the following purposes:

(a)

conducting research relating to the national school curriculum;

(b)

assisting government to formulate policies in relation to education matters;

(c)

formulating national reports consisting of aggregated data on school performance.

This sounds reasonable at face value, but should be considered in light of the government’s move through the Schools Assistance Bill to require additional and unnecessary financial information of non-government schools’ funding sources, and so again we will be vigilant in our close observation of how this body operates in practice.

As indicated, the opposition will support the bill, but in doing so we indicate most clearly that the government is on notice that they have a great responsibility to make this curriculum work. Their record of uncooperative federalism, as seen through the disastrous computers in schools program, does not fill our hearts with hope. Their record of broken promises, as shown by computers in schools, the trades training centres and the very concept of an education revolution, does not fill me with high expectations. It is clear that the education revolution has failed. It is time for the government, and the Acting Prime Minister in particular, to spend less time delivering overblown rhetoric about revolution and instead spend more time delivering on their election promises.

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to speak in support of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008, which the Minister for Education introduced in the House of Representatives on 23 October. The Australian government believes that a national high-quality education system is the foundation upon which this country’s prosperity rests. We need to ensure that all Australians, regardless of their background or socioeconomic status, are equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and capabilities to bring them personal satisfaction and allow them to succeed in a competitive global economy. This year, with an investment of $1.2 billion, we have commenced delivering world-class information and communications technology to schools throughout the country. The digital education revolution has well and truly begun. I am pleased to report that the government has made significant inroads towards building new trades training centres in secondary schools across the country through the $2½ billion Trades Training Centres in Schools Program. Then there is the $4.4 billion education tax refund that is helping parents meet the costs of providing their children with access to the resources they need to assist them with their learning.

In contrast to the previous government, this government believes that the early years are a crucial time in a child’s development, so this is where the education revolution begins—we hear almost nothing about this from the opposition—with fresh investment and a new approach. It is now universally recognised and accepted that the experiences and opportunities a child is given in the early years will have an impact on their learning, their physical and emotional wellbeing and their long-term ability to fully participate in society. As a result, the Australian government is providing $533.5 million over the next five years to ensure that all children have access to quality early learning programs for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks a year in the year before formal schooling commences. These programs will be delivered by four-year trained early childhood teachers. To assist with accessibility and affordability, we have committed $114.5 million towards establishing the first 38 of a total of 260 early learning and care centres in areas of unmet demand, preferably close to or collocated with schools and TAFEs and on other community sites.

Importantly, we know it is not just the number of centres that matters; it is the quality of the care and the learning provided by those centres that is paramount. So, to ensure that every child will have access to consistent, calm and stimulating early learning and care, the government has invested $22 million to develop a set of rigorous national quality standards that will apply across all early childhood settings and services, as well as an investment of $126 million to increase the numbers and enhance the qualifications of the early-years workforce. The government is working hard to create a high-quality early learning and care system for all young Australians. I am delighted to say that, when young children make the transition to school, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 will contribute significantly to ensuring that their education is world class.

This bill gives effect to the Council of Australian Governments’ historic decision of 2 October 2008 to establish a new national education authority that will be responsible for the management of curriculum, assessment and reporting at the national level. In keeping with our approach to collaborative federalism, this bill ensures that the states and territories and the Commonwealth will work in partnership to improve standards in education for all Australian students. The bill recognises state and territory ministers’ responsibilities for the curriculum in their own jurisdictions and mandates joint accountability for the authority between the Commonwealth and the states and territories.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority will deliver two of the Rudd government’s signature reforms: the development of a national curriculum and the transparency and reporting agenda announced in September of this year. The new authority will also develop Australia’s first national curriculum. This is an initiative which will ensure that all Australian students from kindergarten to year 12 have access to the best quality education available, regardless of their socioeconomic background, the type of school they attend or the location of that school. The previous government talked about the merits of a national curriculum but, despite a decade or more in office, they failed to deliver anything tangible in this area. This government realised that it was time to act, and we have done so. The new national curriculum will deliver clear and explicit agreement on the curriculum essentials that are fundamental to delivering a well-balanced, meaningful and useful education—English, mathematics, history and the sciences.

The interim national curriculum board, led by Professor Barry McGaw as its chair and Mr Tony Mackay as deputy chair, have been working very hard to engage the education community in developing Australia’s first national curriculum in English, mathematics, the sciences and history. They have been doing an excellent job and have developed framing papers for English, maths, the sciences and history after extensive consultation with the education sector. I would like to commend the interim board members for their efforts and energy in taking their work to this point. The work of the national curriculum board will now form part of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.

It is our intention that the national curriculum help equip our young people with the skills, knowledge and capabilities that will enable them to compete in the global economy, because more and more Australians from every age and from every profession are living and working overseas for long periods of their professional life. That being the new reality, our graduates must be in a position to meet the challenges of and succeed in the global employment market.

Of course the national curriculum will help teachers and parents as well. It will provide them with a clear understanding of what needs to be covered in each subject through each year level, and it will give teachers the flexibility to design their courses in a creative and inspiring way around the curriculum essentials. The national curriculum will also assist with student and teacher mobility. Every year some 340,000 Australians, including 80,000 school students, move interstate. From the time of its implementation, those students will have certainty and consistency about continuing their educational program with the minimum disruption. The national curriculum will be a powerful mechanism through which to sustain Australia’s economic growth. The development of that curriculum is a fundamental reform of the Australian government’s education revolution, which will lift standards and help Australian students and Australian schools compete internationally.

Improving the transparency and accountability of schools and, indeed, the education system at every level is a top priority for the government. We know that parents support this priority. A major survey of parents’ attitudes about the information that they want from schools, conducted by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, with input from the Australian Council of State School Organisations, found that 96 per cent of parents agreed that important information relating to school activities should be made available to parents. Furthermore, 83 per cent thought that such information should be made publicly available, with the highest proportion of positive respondents being from government schools.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority will also play a key role in managing and analysing schools data at a national level as well as publishing information about the education system, including information on comparative school performance. The authority will play a key role in the new nationally agreed reporting framework to identify school needs and achievements. This framework will include the publication of information on individual schools and provide greater transparency of school capacity and student outcomes for parents, the community and governments.

To achieve reforms in schooling that have a real impact, governments and the community require better information than we now have about what is happening in our schools. The Australian government is committed to providing comprehensive information about what is happening in schools, including what kinds of students are in schools and the outcomes schools are achieving. It is incumbent on all Australian schools, both public and private, to demonstrate that the outcomes they and their students achieve justify the resources provided by the broader community.

There is currently no national accurate or comprehensive information allowing any worthwhile analysis of student and school performance to inform principals, parents and governments. This information is needed for a number of reasons. Firstly, for public accountability purposes schools should be accountable for the funding they receive. Such accountability provides parents and the community with a more accurate picture of a school’s performance. It can also encourage greater parental engagement and promote school improvement. Secondly, for more effective resource allocation school level information is essential if we are to identify where resources are most needed and would be best allocated to improve achievement. We want to ensure that resources are effectively delivered to those schools and communities in the greatest need. Thirdly, for the identification of school performance it is vital that students who need help to reach their full potential are supported to achieve better outcomes and are not left behind.

Greater transparency and accountability at a national level about school characteristics and performance are necessary if we are to improve our school system. Action can be taken for poor performing schools by providing them with long-term assistance to achieve the kinds of student outcomes delivered by similarly placed schools in the community. Best practice can also be promoted by identifying high-performing schools which can serve as models for continuous improvement in education. The authority will assist with this by providing information on student characteristics, including their socioeconomic status; the numbers of Indigenous children, children with disabilities and children from non-English-speaking backgrounds; and national literacy and numeracy attainment.

As I said at the beginning of my address, the work of the new authority aligns perfectly with the Australian government’s plans for early childhood education and child care. The Australian government recognises the importance of the early years in laying the foundation for children’s subsequent achievement in schooling and for satisfaction and success later in life. That is why we are committed to working with the states and territories to develop a national quality framework for early childhood education and care. This framework will include stronger national quality standards, a consistent and transparent quality rating system and an early years learning framework. The development of the national early years learning framework is an integral component of the Australian government’s early childhood quality reforms. It will describe the broad parameters and the principles and outcomes required to support and enhance young children’s learning from birth to five years of age.

In conclusion, education is the key to each and every individual’s success and our collective success as a nation. As part of this government’s education revolution, this new authority, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, will develop unprecedented educational standards for our children and our schools. It is a significant and historic change and a necessary one if we are to be at the forefront of change in an ever-changing world. The government believes, without qualification or exception, that all young Australians are entitled to the very best start in life, and that means the right to a first-rate education. Despite the current economic maelstrom, I think all members would agree that we are still a very prosperous nation and nothing deserves to be the beneficiary of that good fortune more than our children and our education system.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 that is before the House. I am proud to represent the constituents of Macarthur on this very import matter, in particular as the foundation of our nation’s future relies on education and our education policy over the next decade and beyond. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 represents a step forward for the Labor government. I am pleased that they have had the sense to adopt the national curriculum as proposed by the coalition and the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Julie Bishop. In fact, I remember the Hon. Brendan Nelson speaking on this when he was the appropriate minister.

As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training in the Howard government, I was proud to work with the former minister and to share in the many great achievements in education that we implemented. Contrary to many assertions that have been made by the members opposite, the Howard government made a colossal investment in schooling and education. The Howard government invested $1.2 billion in school infrastructure through the highly successful Investing in Our Schools Program. That program delivered desperately needed funding for projects in both primary and secondary schools at the state level which the states had neglected to provide. Furthermore, the coalition invested over $700 million of this fund into the government school sector in particular. Unfortunately, the Rudd government has chosen to abolish this program and others in favour of the stuttering education revolution.

This bill before the House is the latest Labor government attempt to tell the public that it is indeed delivering an education revolution. I only hope that the state governments are more willing to cooperate with the Deputy Prime Minister than New South Wales was on the last round of computer grants made in October this year. The Deputy Prime Minister stated in her second reading speech:

This government knows that a world-class education system is the foundation of a competitive economy, that it underpins a dynamic labour market and that it is central to building a stronger and fairer Australia.

I am pleased that the government knows this; however, I am doubtful that it actually believes it.

The coalition has advocated the establishment of a national curriculum to bring transparency, accountability and consistency to what has been a patchwork of state based systems. We believe a national curriculum and, eventually, nationally recognised qualifications will maximise the choices for students to pursue careers anywhere in this country and not just in their states. A national curriculum is the logical step forward in increasing our standards in education, in strengthening our economy and in developing an intelligent citizenry—all of which are vital to the continuing growth and prosperity of this great nation. I am pleased that the government has adopted the coalition’s policy. By creating a new national authority responsible for curriculum assessment and reporting, this parliament will hopefully usher in a new era of transparency and education.

Parents in my electorate of Macarthur and throughout the country have the right to know where they are sending their children and how that school is performing. For too long parents have been left in the dark, unable to access tangible evidence that proves schools are meeting their obligations to provide the best possible education for their children. I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister when she states that:

In the past, education policy in this country has been dogged by a lack of transparency. Information about what happens in schools and what difference it is making has been seriously lacking.

Unfortunately, for much of the time that the coalition was in government the state governments were reluctant to hand over any control much less open their departments to more accountability and transparency.

Thus far, the school computer grants rolled out by the Deputy Prime Minister have encountered similar hurdles. It is in the best interests of the state governments to work with the federal government to adopt this national curriculum. I encourage the national and state governments to reach a national education agreement that endeavours to establish shared national targets, outcomes and policy directions through COAG before the end of this year. The Deputy Prime Minister has stated that agreements and priorities, including proposals for the national partnerships, to lift teacher quality, boost literacy and numeracy and raise achievement in disadvantaged school communities are vital.

There have been concerns expressed to me by teachers and parents in my electorate that the national curriculum will not raise achievement but may lurch towards meeting the needs of the lowest common denominator. Each state education system has its positive and negative aspects. It is important that each state education minister and their departments show courage in admitting where a policy of another state or of the federal government is possibly better. The temptation to declare one state education system better than another may play well for state government politicians in their local polls; however, it takes conviction and strength to admit that the curriculum standards of achievement in other states are in fact better. I implore the COAG ministers to put aside their political considerations at this next meeting and to work together to create a foundation for a challenging national curriculum that aims to raise the bar for student outcomes. It is what students, teachers and parents in this country deserve.

There is provision in this bill for an analysis of school performance, greater transparency and the reporting of school results and teacher performance, as has been advocated by members on both sides of this House. As the Deputy Prime Minister has stated in her second reading speech:

Accurate information on how students and schools are performing tells teachers, principals, parents and governments what needs to be done.

It is vital that accurate information is available to all stakeholders in a child’s education, particularly parents.

Every year, parents in my electorate and around the country make one of the most important decisions regarding their children’s future, and that is where they send their children to school. I have met with many constituents in my electorate and they are very anxious about where they send their children to school. They come to me for advice because they know that I travel to many schools not only in my electorate but around the country and they are trying to work out a basis for where to send their children and provide them with the best possible education.

In the past, I have encouraged parents to get as much information as they can on schools in their area. However, there has never been an independent, clear-cut analysis comparing schools or school results. The only indicators parents in my electorate have are the UAI results at the end of year 12. Firstly, this is not a reliable indicator of a school’s overall performance. Secondly, it only provides a weak indication of high school performance. This has left an enormous gap in the analysis of primary school performance. The coalition has strongly advocated the need for a national reporting system. The state governments and in particular the teachers unions have been reluctant to open up the nation’s education systems to analysis and scrutiny. The only way we can achieve better outcomes and learning strategies for our children is to allow independent analysis and reporting of school performance. The coalition has always supported transparency and accountability in education. The publishing of results and independent statistics will empower parents. This will hold schools accountable in meeting their outcomes.

I now refer to the details in the provisions of this bill, particularly to the formation of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority as an independent statutory authority under the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997. The Deputy Prime Minister has stated that the bill will include provisions to ensure that state and territory education ministers’ responsibility for curriculum arrangements in their own jurisdictions is recognised and respected and that non-government school systems are participants in the new national arrangements. The authority will be responsible for the management of curriculum, assessment and reporting at the national level and will report to all Australian education ministers through the ministerial council. The bill provides for an authority that will be led by a 13-member expert board of directors responsible for overseeing the functions of the authority. Membership will include a chair, a deputy chair, one nominee from the Commonwealth, one nominee from each state and territory education minister, one nominee from the National Catholic Education Commission and one nominee from the Independent Schools Council of Australia.

I have two major concerns with the proposed make-up of this authority. Firstly, just over one-third of students in my electorate in Western Sydney attend Catholic or other non-government schools. It is fundamentally important that the participation of non-government schools is preserved. This legislation must ensure that any proposed changes to the national curriculum in the future will have input from the teachers and parents of schools that are responsible for the education of over one-third of the student population—that is, non-government schools. If anything, the new authority under-represents the non-government school sector. They have been allocated only two of the 13 appointments. I urge the government to reconsider the make-up of the authority to proportionally represent the interests of non-government schools. With over one-third of students in my electorate attending these schools, with similar figures across the country, it is only fair that they have a proportional say in what their schools will be teaching.

Secondly, the overwhelming majority of the board will be appointed by state education ministers. Although I do see the logic in having each state education department represented, I am concerned that the appointments to the authority will become politicised. The curriculum—as in what students will actually be taught—moulds the way each new generation will think. Over the years we have seen accusations of political bias of teachers and curriculums that are set by the state governments. Education must be consistent. That is why the coalition proposed and supported the idea of a national curriculum. In modern 21st century Australia it is absurd to have seven different curriculums setting seven different approaches to education. Providing a consistent and stimulating curriculum for students is one aim of a national curriculum. The appointment of representatives to the authority by state education ministers, with the authority having the right to reject a proposed candidate, is bound to cause instability in the authority and as a consequence in the direction of the national curriculum.

The national political landscape at a state and federal level is dominated by Labor governments. They will hold the balance of power when choosing who is appointed to the authority that will recommend the standards of the curriculum. Although I will not presume that the ministers, nor their appointments to the authority, will overtly exercise political bias, I believe that that is a risk in the provisions of the bill. I ask the government to please consider this when nominations are put forward. If our education system is to produce inquisitive, open-minded and competent citizens who possess the capacity for free thought, they must not be overwhelmed by political persuasion. Instead, the authority must ensure that the curriculum gives students the tools to eventually make up their own mind, to be given both sides of a story or a history and to openly question what might have been rather than be told what should have happened. In her second reading speech, the Deputy Prime Minister discussed the benefits of having a national curriculum. She stated:

In developing a single national curriculum, the authority will ensure that every young Australian has access to the highest quality education—regardless of where they live or their socioeconomic background.

As I referred to earlier, the curriculum must raise the standard of achievement and not slump to accommodating the lowest common denominator. The national curriculum must be implemented with the intention of raising the standards of education for students. It is completely unacceptable that year 12 students leaving high school for university sometimes have to take bridging courses at university to learn basic spelling and grammar. Teachers must be given the tools to ensure their students do not slip through the cracks without learning the basics. Many teachers in my electorate suggest that a reduction in class sizes and a better student-teacher ratio is not enough to prevent this from happening.

A major area of concern I have in relation to this bill is the direction that the national history curriculum will take under this advisory board. The appointment of Professor Stuart Macintyre to draft the national history curriculum highlights the risks of a political appointee being entrusted with writing a holistic approach to history. For too long Australia’s students have been subjected to history based on case studies and a bland outline of Australia’s history. It is vital that the history curriculum provide students with a sound grasp of Australia’s history but also Australia’s heritage and the context of our history within the history of the rest of the world since 1788, not just from 1901. Australian students already lack a basic understanding, and therefore a valuable appreciation, of our British inheritance of Westminster democracy, the rule of law, and our place and links with Western civilisation.

Nor in the state curricula to date have we encouraged a deeper knowledge of the Australian political system beyond year 6. During my time in Canberra, one of the greatest pleasures for me as a member of parliament has been to welcome primary school groups to this place to learn more about the political system. However, it is my overwhelming belief that we should also encourage high school students to visit Parliament House in Canberra and to encourage them to fully understand the political system in this country so that they can play a better role in the growth of this country and further their endeavours to be leaders of this nation at a later date. I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister when she states, ‘We must ensure that all Australian children achieve their educational potential, and that more of them complete schooling through to year 12.’ This country was not built on past generations accepting second best.

I feel it is important to reflect at this time on the symbolism of our national coat of arms. The kangaroo and the emu present on the coat of arms symbolise our nation striding forwards and never being allowed to take a backwards step. It is my hope that this new national curriculum, as prescribed in this bill, will indeed take our nation further forward and provide a solid foundation for the happiness and success of our future generations.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. It is just the latest chapter in the Rudd government’s—particularly the Deputy Prime Minister’s—education revolution. I thought at the outset that I would recap a couple of the key elements of that revolution, because they are the background to this bill, which is perhaps the most exciting step that we have had so far in this revolution.

The first element is that our approach is a fundamentally different approach to early childhood. This government recognises the overwhelming research, not just in Australia but around the world now, that shows that the first five years are the most important in a person’s development. The research of James Heckman in the United States, and many other researchers all around the world, shows that a human being in the first five years of their existence has the greatest capacity in all of their life to develop cognitive abilities. The research also shows that a dollar invested by the government in the first five years of a person’s life shows a greater return than a dollar invested in any other years of a child’s or an adult’s education. As a government we also need to deal with a significant legacy of underinvestment. The Australian investment in preschool education has been at around 0.1 per cent of GDP compared to the average OECD investment of 0.5 per cent. The key plank of this government’s different approach to the first five years is the commitment to a universal 15 hours per week of preschool for four-year-olds.

The second element of the education revolution thus far has been an overhaul of school infrastructure, in particular the digital education revolution, which seems at the moment to be attracting a great deal of attention, finally, from the opposition. It is a program of $1.2 billion over five years which has already seen money for about 116,000 computers roll out to the different state, independent and Catholic systems. I have been to a number of high schools in my electorate and spoken to principals, teachers and students about this program. It is an exceptionally popular and greatly overdue program, as is the trade training centres program that has been initiated by the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Trade Training Centres in Schools Program is a crucial element of the education of young Australians. In my own electorate I have visited high-school tech study areas that, frankly, have not changed since I was at school. They have equipment that was put in there in the 1960s. I am not sure how working on lathes that were installed in 1964 could equip a 15- or 16-year-old to work at the Australian Submarine Corp. in Port Adelaide. A program of $2.5 billion over 10 years will massively uplift the trade-ready skills of young South Australians and young Port Adelaide people. It is a great element of the education revolution, as is the support given to parents for the costs that go with all of this—I particularly refer to the education tax refund in the amount of about $1 billion per year.

Perhaps the most important element of the education revolution is our program to lift the performance of our schools. While we have a great schooling system it could and it should be doing better. I look at the Deputy Prime Minister’s budget papers for education released earlier this year and see that the OECD PISA results for 2006 show that although Australia does relatively well internationally we could do much better. Our performance has slipped between 2003 and 2006. The papers indicate:

In the period between 2003 and 2006 Australia declined in both its absolute and relative performance in reading literacy, and its relative performance in mathematical literacy.

And they indicate something that is particularly relevant to my electorate:

Australia has too long a ‘tail’ of underperformance linked to disadvantage. The PISA results indicate that over the last six years the percentage of students who are less than proficient at reading or maths has not reduced.

Our objectives in this area are crystal clear: firstly, to get better outcomes across the student population, particularly in key skills such as literacy and numeracy, and also to improve school retention. Retention rates in Australia have dropped dramatically since the early 1990s and now sit at a level which is low by OECD standards. This has been quite dramatic. I know that in my own state of South Australia in the early 1990s school retention to year 12 or its equivalent sat at about 92 per cent of the school population, and it dropped to below 60 per cent by the end of that decade and has crept up only marginally since then.

So our government, along with state and territory governments, has a goal through COAG to lift school retention to 90 per cent by 2020—and it is not just for the sake of keeping kids in school, because we know that international research shows unequivocally that every year of schooling has a financial return to the student of somewhere between 10 per cent and 17 to 20 per cent. According to James Heckman, one of the pre-eminent education scholars in the United States, ‘There is a firmly established consensus that the mean rate of return to a year of schooling as of the 1990s exceeds 10 per cent and may be as high as 17 to 20 per cent.’ That is the extra income that a young Australian will earn for every year that they remain at school.

The government has a multipronged strategy for lifting school and student performance. As I indicated, literacy and numeracy standards are a particular concern of the government—and, I am sure, of Australians in general at the moment—and are a particular focus of our government. These are skills essential to success in every subject and potentially every career imaginable. This government has an action plan on literacy and numeracy agreed through the COAG and amounting to about $577 million over four years. That particularly involves extra support for disadvantaged areas that struggle in literacy and numeracy and it will be scientifically targeted on the basis of the literacy and numeracy tests, or the LAN tests, that were conducted around the country earlier this year.

The second plank is the establishment of a national curriculum—something COAG agreed would be in place within three years. This was an early decision of the new government and put into effect through the establishment of an interim National Curriculum Board chaired by Professor Barry McGaw, a scholar of international acclaim, particularly through his work with the OECD in this area. Already, within 12 months, framing papers in the four core subjects of maths, science, English and history have been released by that board and are out for consultation now.

The third plank in the strategy to lift school and student performance which concerns this bill is the collection of data and the reporting of data on school performance—something that again was openly and transparently an election commitment of the Labor Party. This bill particularly concerns the issues of a national curriculum and also the reporting of school performance. Without over-egging the pudding, it is truly a revolutionary approach to school education which until now in these areas has been very much state based and, in the area of performance, has been very much opaque.

In the area of a national curriculum, differences between states and territories are hard to fathom in a rich and modern country. There are about 80,000 school-age students, I am advised, that move interstate each year, between schools or between jurisdictions that have different curricula, even in core subjects. Employers and universities in a modern economy should be able to assume that students applying to work or study at their institutions have the same core competencies that are being taught from Cairns to Bunbury or from Broome to Hobart. This seems to me something of a no-brainer.

The second element of the bill is to introduce a level of transparency and accountability that the school system in Australia has not seen before. In the area of accountability  and addressing this issue—has become a bit controversial—it is hard to imagine more important public institutions than our schools, whether they are government schools or publicly assisted, funded and supported non-government schools. But there is precious little reporting on their performance to the community that funds them or even to the parents that use them. To achieve these two ends, the bill establishes the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. It is another example of cooperative federalism. There was no ambush here. There was no bludgeoning of states’ rights. This authority arose as a result of mature negotiations through the COAG process—negotiations that started with the review through MCEETYA by the Boston Consulting Group. The recommendations of that group were adopted by the MCEETYA in September and approved by COAG in October—a very good case study in cooperative federalism that those opposite might want to consider in the event that they return to the treasury bench.

The authority is an independent statutory authority established under the Commonwealth jurisdiction, under the CAC Act, but accountable to all governments through MCEETYA. MCEETYA will be setting the work plan of this authority through a charter developed every year. The authority will be required to report to MCEETYA, at which all governments are represented, on the progress of that plan and any other activities it has been directed by MCEETYA to perform. Its functions are clearly set out in the bill and the supporting speech made by the Deputy Prime Minister. Firstly, it is to subsume and continue the work of the interim National Curriculum Board to develop a comprehensive national curriculum. As I said earlier, this is a long overdue goal in Australia.

The interim National Curriculum Board, under the leadership of Professor Barry McGaw, has already achieved a great deal indeed—as I said, framing papers were released recently in those four key subjects of maths, science, English and history, They are out for consultation now but generally, as far as I can tell, have been very well received. This highlights the importance of independence in this area. This is not a job for politicians to set national curricula that might reflect their particular peccadilloes; this is something for independent experts to determine through an interim NCD of the type that we have set up. It is important to balance the goals of national consistency with flexibility that still allows teachers and schools to build a class and a subject around the core elements within the national curriculum—indeed, that allows specialised schools like the Montessori schools or systems like the international baccalaureate to build their own particular approaches around core competencies—on which students, parents, employers and higher education institutions can rely.

The second function is to not only develop and administer the national assessment of school and student performance but also, more importantly perhaps, handle the reporting to parents and the broader community of that school performance—perhaps the most controversial element of this bill. I go back to my earlier point about the importance of transparency and accountability here. Governments at different levels spend an extraordinary amount of money every year on such an important purpose, and there is a very heavy onus upon those who say there should not be transparent accountability for the expenditure of that money to argue that position and to argue why that should continue to be the case. A very important reason for this transparency is to encourage parental participation and community engagement in our school systems. This has been identified by COAG as a particular priority over the coming years, and it is reasonable as a parent to expect that, if you are being asked to be more engaged in your school system, you have good information about but how that school is going.

The Deputy Prime Minister released a survey today that showed that 97 per cent of parents agree that that sort of information should be available to them as parents, and it currently is not. More than 83 per cent of respondents—and apparently it is a higher figure in government schools—across the community agreed that that information should be available not only to parents but also to the broader community. We know that if we are able to lift parent and community engagement in the school system then we will get better results. Again there is a good deal of research to show that parent and community engagement lifts achievement and lifts retention. I again quote from James Heckman’s piece on human capital. It says that a major determinant of successful schools is successful families. It says:

Schools work with what parents bring them. They operate more effectively if parents reinforce them by encouraging and motivating their children, and they are only going to be able to do that with particular effectiveness if they are engaged fully in what the school is doing—what they are doing well and what they are not doing so well.

Done properly, these functions and the bill generally should lift school and student performance for three reasons. Firstly, if you have greater transparency and accountability in your school then there is just a natural human incentive to lift your performance under a system of reporting. It is an innate trait that all of us have from the time of birth. Secondly, it will allow the government and the community to target extra funds and effort where this reporting shows there is an identified need. The flipside of that is that, where the reporting shows a very successful approach or successful model, it will allow the government and the broader community to crosspollinate or cross-fertilise that successful approach into schools that are not doing so well. This government is putting its money where its mouth is in this area—the Prime Minister’s Press Club address in August showed that—and has supported this approach with a sum of around $500,000 for an average-size school. These funds will be available to target areas of need that are identified through this reporting.

The third reason this will work is that it will be supported by a very strong focus on improving teacher quality. All of the research shows that the most important and most effective way in which you can lift school performance is through lifting teacher quality—reducing class sizes helps and a range of other things such as parent engagement helps, but nothing is as effective as lifting teacher quality. This government very early on in its term developed through COAG a draft national policy partnership on teaching, which we have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister will be presented for final determination at the COAG meeting this weekend.

We also heard a very welcome announcement earlier today by the Deputy Prime Minister that $500 million will be put in place to support this program. This will also involve a program to attract the best principals and the best teachers to the schools that need them the most. It is all well and good for the best teachers and the best principals to work at schools that are already doing well; our challenge as a community is to bring those teachers and principals to schools that need them the most to lift their performance.

It is true that this system of reporting is not without its dangers. Any system of reporting the standards of something as important as a school is never without its dangers. We know that each school operates with a different suite of advantages and disadvantages, particularly in terms of the background of their student populations. This reporting system cannot be simply a league table that ranks schools as if they were all bringing the same contexts, backgrounds and student populations to the table—they are simply not doing that. If we were to do that then we would run the very serious risk of undue stigma attaching to schools that, for a whole range of understandable reasons, do not perform as well as other schools that have a range of advantages. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have made it crystal clear that this reporting system will allow the community to compare like with like: it will allow the community to compare schools on the basis of their socioeconomic status, their Indigenous student populations, the percentage of their student populations that are newly arrived to Australia through migrant or refugee programs, their teacher population and a range of other things.

In summary, this bill is just the right thing to do. It is a significantly overdue package of reforms that, I think, will revolutionise our school systems. In my electorate I have a range of schools that I visit often that have very significant challenges arising at all levels, whether we are talking about the student population, the teacher population, their capacity to access funds other than from the government or a number of other issues. This package will allow the community and parents in those areas to become more engaged. It will attract the best teachers. I commend the bill to the House. (Time expired)

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to make a contribution to this debate, and I will come back to some of the themes that have been raised which try to present this as a package of long-reaching, visionary reforms as part of the education revolution. All soaring rhetoric, but when you get down to it this bill sets up a bureaucracy—a needed bureaucracy, but let us not overstate what is going on with this bill before the House. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 will, quite simply, establish the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. That is its purpose and that is what it aims to achieve. Many of the other things that speakers, particularly on the government side, have sought to impute to this bill are just complete fiction. That is not to say there are not other things going on. We have had a hearty debate about some of those issues, including the way in which funding for non-government schools is being altered—or at least the framework is being put in place for an attack on independent school funding. Labor has honoured its election commitment not to go for the jugular of independent school funding immediately, but it is certainly assembling the arsenal of weapons and equipment to do so, with some of the extra reporting and information requirements in the Schools Assistance Bill.

That bill, with its framework for further funding, segues into this bill, because one of the conditions that may confront non-government schools is their compliance with the Australian curriculum. One of the things canvassed widely in the debate about the Schools Assistance Bill is that we do not actually know what this national curriculum looks like. At the conclusion of the debate on this bill, we still will not know what it looks like. What we do know is there will be a new authority set up to address these issues. So much of what the opposition has sought to do here is to highlight the opportunity that this bill represents but to take on trust what will happen with these tools, with these instruments, with these institutions once they are established. I think it is important for people contributing to the debate to recognise what is in the bill, not what they would like to have seen in this or some other bill.

So what this bill does, quite frankly, quite simply and singularly, is establish the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. It sets up that authority as an independent statutory authority, something that is welcome. The authority’s role is to manage the creation and the implementation of the national syllabus, the national assessment and reporting procedures of school educational outcomes and to do things with that information. That is it; that is what this bill is about. As I said, that is something that is needed and is welcome, although it is important to recognise that the ‘operationalising’, the implementing of these requirements that will be put before this soon-to-be established authority, is something that we have to wait to see. We will review and examine this with great interest because the promise that is being held out about this authority—it sounds a little bit like the UN—when you describe it in its generality, is magnificent. We will have to wait to see what comes out in actuality, because this is an important area but, as some speakers have touched upon, it is an area that is fraught with its own difficulties and obstacles.

Some of those difficulties and obstacles were well experienced by the former, coalition government. Despite a very positive record in supporting education innovation and reform, one of the things we could not quite get to was convincing state and territory governments that what we are debating here—something that has been around as a public policy discussion all of my adult life and then some—was something that we could all agree on. They like this stuff; this is constitutionally their baby. And you can imagine there was some reluctance to give way to what seemed to be a collegiate, Commonwealth-wide approach when most of the state and territory jurisdictions had the pretty firm idea that whatever they were doing was right and that others should emulate them. And you can imagine that in a room where everybody is offering their model as the right model you will get a difference of opinion.

Despite that difficulty, the coalition did manage to increase funding for state government schools in every budget, delivering funding increases of 70 per cent in real terms between 1996 and 2007. It put the interests of the students and the parents at the heart of the debate in the discussion about the direction of our education system, recognising that those key stakeholders have as much to say and as much to contribute as education bureaucracies and teacher unions, and will carry the consequences of decisions much more than they will. That is not to say that education bureaucracies and teacher unions do not have something to offer but that the consequence of all of that effort and enterprise rests very much with the students and with their families. The coalition enhanced the capacity of parents to make a choice and to participate directly and to be fully engaged in the educational pathways of their children through government or non-government schools.

It struck me as somewhat ironic that the member for Port Adelaide was talking about the virtue of independence. That independence, that virtue, seems to extend to the role of this bureaucracy but not to the role of parents and school communities. I am sure that in many electorates there are a number of non-government, low-fee, independent schools that were established with the encouragement and support of the coalition government, in complete contrast to the former, Keating government’s new schools policy that was set up not to have any new schools. So this idea of independence seems to be fashionable. We hear the Labor members of parliament talk about it when it suits them and then abandon the idea when it does not. Nothing is more evident of that than perhaps the work of this authority. We listened with interest, in a previous debate, to what funding for non-government schools involved, and you certainly could not say that was about school independence. It was about increasing school dependence on central frameworks and mandated requirements and, I fear, risking the stifling of educational innovation to find the new pathways, the effective models, the pedagogy and the student and family and school community engagement that I think we need to pursue.

But these bills actually create a greater dependence. They seek to put in place the framework that must be complied with by those seeking funding. We have provided the opportunity on a number of occasions to the Rudd government to reassure those school communities that may be pursuing other academic pathways—well-recognised, well-established, different teaching models, and you heard some of those mentioned earlier—that those kinds of teaching models will be deemed to comply or at least work within a framework that amounts to adherence to this curriculum framework that will become mandatory. But they have declined to take that up. That is a cause of great concern and has unsettled many, certainly in my school community, who actually thought educational innovation was something that should be valued—and I would certainly support that view.

The bill does talk about a number of functions. One which is not there but again was implied by a Labor speaker is that somehow better practice in the education of young people will be distilled out of the results and then shared more generally. Boy, I hope that does happen—that would be my wish—but that is not what the functions of the bill talk about. It says that the authority is a collection agency for information and it puts in place frameworks for national assessment, but in this bill you do not see working models that recognise the context in which school communities operate, the competencies and levels of attainment of their students and then the teaching and learning interventions and practices that bring about the best achievement for that diverse group of students. I would have liked to have seen that specifically mentioned as a function, where the authority would work as a clearing house of better ideas and innovation to encourage, recognise and reward those things rather than hope they will somehow pop out the side from all the data collection that seems to be at the heart of this authority’s functions.

There is scope for a lot of good to come out of that work, but this bill sets up the machinery to put in place a national curriculum. It puts in place the machinery to set up an assessment and reporting framework. I hope it extends its work into a place of learning and sharing of insights and identifying what works best in a very difficult environment of diverse school communities, diverse levels of achievement and diverse appreciations of what intelligence and attainment means for different students with different ambitions for their lives. I hope it does that. But it would be wrong, as the member for Port Adelaide sought to do, to project that into this bill when it makes no such claim that that is the purpose of the authority. The member for Port Adelaide also talked about parent and community engagement, and never do you see that displayed with more vigour and vitality than when you see some of these new, low-fee independent schools set up, where parents make a very enormous commitment to the school community to help set up an education system and a place of learning and teaching that supports their hopes, ambitions and values for their families. It is a sight to behold and there are a number of outstanding examples in my own electorate.

The work of establishing a national curriculum is not new, and certainly I am no stranger to it, having argued the case for some years, more recently prior to the election of the Rudd government when I was the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence. I was thinking about military families, the defence community and how forced mobility via deployments in the ADF presented a very real example of the challenges families and students face in the absence of a national curriculum. Those forced mobility challenges were then added to by the elective mobility of people pursuing employment opportunities in different parts of the continent. They were finding that their children were disadvantaged because they needed to bolt onto a different kind of educational framework in a different jurisdiction. That certainly made the task of successful relocation and engagement with those new communities even more difficult. Thankfully, in the ADF we had a lot of student support services to assist that transition being made by people to the great state of Western Australia. My friend and colleague the member for Kalgoorlie talks regularly about the employment opportunities. If you actually take up those tantalising opportunities and you are not in the ADF, you would not have that support service that is available for our serving men and women to make sure that their children successfully transition into that new environment. It is a classic example of how workforce mobility is making this an even greater priority.

One issue that has arisen, though, is that of consultation. As I contacted school community leaders, both at the board level and at the school committee level, or senior teachers and principals, they were worried about the whole national curriculum debate happening around them. They read much about it in the media. They often heard members of parliament and ministers talking about it, but they felt that it was all happening to them. One said, ‘When are we,’ meaning the teaching professionals, ‘going to get a chance to have a say about all of this?’ I thought that was a very interesting insight when engagement, consultation and stakeholder input were supposed to be the hallmark of this process. I hope those early moments of unsettling reflection, where people felt quite removed from the development of the curriculum, are something that is remedied over time as this authority is established and its personnel can see that done in a more systematic and engaging way.

I also heard anxiety about this adherence issue and the conditionality that may be attached to government funding for non-government schools. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a shot in the arm for independence; this is a creation of greater dependence at a time when we have heard speakers from both sides of the parliament suggest that the innovation that comes through independence and the constant search for new insights and new practices may be stymied by a strict application of this national curriculum—and with it the conditionality that if you want government funding you need to adhere very closely to whatever this framework might end up like.

I think to say that this bill is an educational revolution is complete hyperbole. You could not even say it is an education devolution. As I have mentioned, the dependence is greater, not lesser.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nice alliteration.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, colleague. What happens, though, on the ground is something that is even more interesting for my community. We regret that the Australian technical college that was to be established in the greater Frankston-Mornington Peninsula region is not to go ahead—that the incoming government has walked away from something that was thought to be fabulously important to the vast variety of students in the community that I represent, many of whom saw a skills pathway as most befitting their competencies and ambitions for the future. That is a lost opportunity.

I was quite interested to hear the Acting Prime Minister’s response to my question in question time today about the time frame for the national broadband network and how the promise of the Rudd government was that work would commence before the end of this calendar year. No-one is really convinced of that. I do not think that even the Rudd government itself is. You see its fellow travellers—that is, the state Labor governments—obviously completely impatient with what was an election promise: fibre connections to the schools. One hundred million dollars was to be made available to have broadband connections in Australian schools deliver speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. That was a lofty ambition, but progress certainly has not peaked early. There is very little sign of any progress on that—so much so that, earlier this month, the Victorian state government unveiled its own $89 million program to upgrade broadband to 1,600 government schools. Its partnership with Telstra was going to deliver a capacity of 10 megabits per second by June next year. So we are way off 100 megabits. Even state Labor governments are now realising that the Rudd government had great sound bites for the election but no sound public policy to actually implement the changes.

When you look back you will see that some of the state Labor governments, leading up to the last federal election, bemoaned the former, coalition government on broadband. They were wondering about the OPEL initiative—$958 million—that would have delivered metro comparable broadband to rural, regional and remote Australia. The Rudd government canned that project. To give an example of the impact of that, while regional and rural Australia waits for the Rudd government to sort out its shambolic NBN process, the students in those school communities are missing out. OPEL would have delivered metropolitan comparable broadband. If you started secondary school this year, you will probably be reflecting on schoolies week, after you have concluded your secondary education, before anything from the NBN delivers improved broadband to your school community—another example of an opportunity missed.

In terms of opportunities, we reflect on testing and how important that can be to identify educational disadvantage and the need for targeted remedial interventions. No-one bemoans that. But as I listened to Ray Hill, the Peninsula School’s principal speaker at the middle and senior school awards night the other evening, I was touched by the eloquence with which he pointed out that testing of those, I suppose, building-block education skills should not be the end of the game. They identify the need for numeracy and literacy improvements with the NAP, but they are building-block competencies so that people are in a position to learn. People can undertake their studies, and teachers and school communities can target the results if that is all that you are examining, but he cautioned us by saying that that cannot be all that we value in the education experience. He very eloquently pointed out that, of the intelligences, competencies and know-how that represent intellectual potential or potential activity in attainment and achievement of students, the areas that are being tested are just one part. A far more rounded view would pick up the importance of strong teachers in supportive school communities—not just identify areas of disadvantage but how to build on opportunities to advantage our students.

I look back at some of my work and advocacy from over a decade ago—and I will stick with the subject—about just how important it is to embrace work like Mayer key competencies. In 1992, Rick Mayer and his advisory committee advised all educational jurisdictions that it was time to incorporate key competencies into the school curriculum. These key competencies are the building blocks of opportunity. They are what provide for mobility in the workplace and they are the core ingredients of what I believe is essential lifelong learning. These are the things that help our kids deal with innovations in technology, the pace at which the economy is changing and the need to move between professions. Nowhere in this education revolution has the Rudd government mentioned any of these things.

The former, coalition government moved forward on this work under the banner of employability skills, but even in this area we ran into obstacles because all of the state jurisdictions thought their concept of employability skills was better than someone else’s. When it comes to communication skills, solving problems with technology, working in teams and the use of your skill set to solve problems that will vary and change over time, these workplace know-how and employability skills must be part of the forward agenda. This is about making sure that all of our students are advantaged in this dynamic world and that we not only put our energies into addressing disadvantage, as important as that is, but also build the capacity for our students to engage in this dynamic world and be part of this delicious world of opportunities. We need to tool them up as they sift through those opportunities, make choices about their lives and recognise there will be a number of different challenges they will confront. I call on the Rudd government to embrace Mayer’s work and inculcate that into the national curriculum. (Time expired)

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. As the Deputy Prime Minister said in her second reading speech, this bill heralds a new era of transparency and quality for Australian schools. We need a world-class education system because that is the basis of a competitive economy. In the May budget this year, the Rudd Labor government committed $19.3 billion towards its education revolution. It is about creating the kind of world-class education system that will advance our economy in a very competitive global environment. We are about delivering computers to schools and delivering trade training centres and providing parents with the income they need by way of education tax rebates to ensure that, whatever they spend when it comes to textbooks, the internet, computers and computer software, they get a refund to ensure that their children get access to the tools of the 21st century.

The bill that is before us this evening is about creating a new national authority responsible for curriculum, assessment and reporting, and introduces the new era of transparency. We need to do this because, sadly and regrettably, under the Howard coalition government for nearly 12 years we languished. I heard speaker after speaker—the member for Sturt, the member for Macarthur, the member for Dunkley—waxing lyrically about the contribution of the Howard coalition government. But they were not content with injecting ideology into the workplaces of Australia; they were about injecting ideology into the schools and universities of our country. They are now bemoaning the fact that we want transparency, accountability, honesty and integrity in our education system and bemoaning the fact that they do not have the opportunity to impose their conservative ideology in our schools. For 12 years we had confrontation. People who had devoted their lives to the education of children, public school teachers and their unions, and parents who had chosen to send their children to public schools, were criticised. The public education system in my state was criticised by the Howard coalition government. It was about values they wanted to impose in our system. But I say to those sitting opposite: it is about helping our children, educating them and giving them the best chance in their lives. Giving a child from a working-class background an opportunity to be educated is the greatest way to give that child the best chance for a career and for advancement. It is about social justice.

The legislation before us is about ensuring that our students in schools like Bremer State High School, Ipswich State High School, Rosewood State High School, Redbank Plains State High School, Boonah State High School and Lockyer District State High School have the same kind of chance as children who go to Brisbane Grammar School, Churchie and Nudgee. We need to ensure that our schools that are suffering disadvantage receive as much support as possible. I have some tremendous private schools in my electorate: Ipswich Grammar School, Ipswich Girls Grammar School, St Edmund’s boys college, St Mary’s girls college, Faith Lutheran College. They are tremendous high schools, and there are parents who struggle to send their children there because they choose to do so, believing that is the best way to advance their children’s education. Sometimes they do it for religious reasons, sometimes they do it for other reasons, but they want the best for their kids. It does not matter whether children go to St Eddie’s or to Bremer, they should have the same advantage in life and they should be able to be taught the same kind of curriculum. This bill is about a new era for children who attend those schools in my electorate.

I am sick and tired of the blame game that we hear from those who were in the Howard government. If they want to look at the facts they should have a look at the legacy they left us to deal with. They left us with 6.5 million Australians with no post-school qualifications. I recommend they have a look at the OECD Program for International Student Assessment and the terrible tale of underperformance which is linked to disadvantage. There was a real decline in literacy levels in this country and our school retention rates to year 12—or senior, as we say in Queensland—flatlined under the Howard coalition government, according to the 2007 ABS report Schools, Australia. The statistics are damning. Under the Howard coalition government our children were left at tremendous disadvantage. The children in those government schools in my electorate have been disadvantaged by the legacy of the Howard coalition government.

The bill before us this evening delivers on our election commitment to establish a national curriculum for all Australian schools. One year on from our election to government, we have been getting on with the job of delivering what we call the education revolution to Australia. We in the Labor Party aspire to build a world-class education system because many of the people who sit on this side of the House have enjoyed the advantage of education and what it has provided for us. It has given many of us the opportunity in life to be here in this House with the honour of representing our electorates. A world-class education system will enhance our economy and make sure we have a smart and competitive country. We are not about to let our education system wither and decline, as happened after more than a decade of neglect under the Howard coalition government. We are about cooperative federalism, about collaboration in dealing with state governments, whether they are Labor or coalition, to ensure that our ambitious agenda for education is fulfilled. We are not about to start criticising coalition governments, whether they are in Western Australia or elsewhere in the future. We want to work with them to ensure that our national curriculum is established and that our children have the advantages they need.

This bill seeks to establish the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority under the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act of 1997. It will take over the work of the Interim National Curriculum Board, which was established in April 2008. The new board will be a statutory authority reporting to the parliament and to the ministerial council of education ministers—and that is just another example of cooperative federalism under the Rudd Labor government. The board will be responsible for the management of curriculum, assessment and reporting at the national level. The new authority will enable a combined focus, including more effective transparency and accountability mechanisms, that will meet the needs of students, parents, teachers and the broader community.

I am the parent of two teenage daughters. I am pleased to say that my youngest daughter is finishing senior school this year, and my wife and I rejoice at that fact. Both my daughters went to state schools. In their primary school years they both attended Raceview State School and Bremer State High School. Both did well at those schools because of their own commitment and also the wonderful contribution of the staff at those schools. They are not teachers who just do nine-to-five or nine-to-three type jobs. The teachers at those state schools make a big difference in the lives of those children. I was pleased to be at Bremer State High School last Friday to speak at the graduation of the year 12s and to see the affection of those children for their teachers, the many hugs, kisses and handshakes and the genuine concern of the teachers for their students.

I want to commend one particular teacher, Mrs Tierney—I do not even know her first name because I know her as Mrs Tierney—who is my youngest daughter’s legal studies teacher. She decided this year—this is the level of commitment that she made—to spend time away from her partner and stay with her folks in Ipswich, even though she lived down at the Gold Coast, because she was so committed to the classes that she taught at Bremer State High School. That is the level of commitment that we see from some of our teachers in both the public sector and the private sector. I want to commend those teachers in those public schools because they make a huge contribution to the lives of those children. I would defy anyone in this House not to be able to recall teachers that made a big difference in their lives. I can recall Mrs Lorraine Adams, my year 12 modern history teacher who encouraged me to go on and study arts/law at the University of Queensland. I recall other teachers who made big impacts on my life. I am sure there are teachers who made big impacts on the lives of all the members of this House. To think that the Howard coalition government would criticise the teachers and the teachers unions is a national disgrace.

The historic decision behind this legislation to establish a new national education authority was reached on 2 October this year at COAG, and it was achieved after consultation. That is what it is about; it is about talking with stakeholders. It is not about criticism and confrontation.

A national curriculum will benefit students across the country. It will benefit teachers, of course, who have to teach that curriculum, but it will benefit the students as well because we know that over 80,000 students move interstate each year. They transfer schools and they will not be disadvantaged. In my electorate we have the biggest military base in the country, the RAAF base at Amberley. We have got thousands of people who live near the base in suburbs like Yamanto, Flinders View and Raceview and even further afield into the federal electorate of Oxley down at Forest Lake and Springfield.

I have spoken to a lot of members of the military who work on the base and I have spoken to their partners. Getting access to dentists and doctors is a challenge. Finding sporting teams and cultural groups and activities for their children is important. But when they move interstate they often find they are not sure which particular grade to go into. They are not sure whether or not what they were being taught in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth is the same as what they are being taught when they come to Ipswich. So a national curriculum will make a huge difference in the lives of the children who live in my electorate of Blair, particularly in and around Ipswich. That is welcome news for the thousands of defence families who live in the electorate of Blair in south-east Queensland. It will ensure that children who live in and around Ipswich will not be detrimentally affected. The parents and the military want the best for their kids but those military families suffer particular disadvantage because every few years they often get moved to Townsville, Darwin, Newcastle or wherever, or their mother or father is often required to serve overseas, so they are separated and they suffer tremendous disadvantage. To ensure their kids have a national curriculum is just one way to equalise the opportunity for those kids.

This particular bill delivers on our promise about transparency in schools. I do not think there would be a parent who did not have some difficulty reading the report you get back in relation to how your child did at school. Sometimes the reports are not as detailed as possible or indeed sometimes they are not quite as easy to understand as possible. I think I am reasonably intelligent; I have got a few university degrees and I think I can read pretty well. But there have been times when I have read school reports and have rung up the teacher or the principal just to find out how my children went. It is important that school report cards and what we tell our parents is open, transparent and easily understandable so parents can understand how their children are actually going at that school.

We want to ensure that our children get the best education possible and so we want to know whether they are attaining academic success or they are struggling. It is very important that we have transparency when it comes to reporting by schools—but it should not be seen as an opportunity to attack teachers who work hard in our schools or the teachers unions who represent those teachers. This reporting regime will be overseen by the new authority charged with implementing the national curriculum, national literacy and numeracy tests, assessment and reporting.

I have got to confess that maths was not my strongest subject at school. I liked English, I loved history and I was not too bad at science, although chemistry and physics were bit of a struggle. But I am really strongly of the view that English, maths, science and history are critical to children’s education. It is important that they get as broad an education as possible in the younger years and I have to say this: the fact that the Howard government in its preschool education funding was only committing about one-fifth of what our OECD partners were committing to preschool education was a terrible indictment of the Howard government.

When it came to primary education they failed as well because the children who got taught at the schools and who were then tested in literacy and numeracy often failed. I have known children, friends of my daughters, who failed in circumstances where you really wondered why that was happening. Students will lose out if we do not create a national curriculum and certainly those families in my electorate associated with the military will lose out as well.

This is a wonderful piece of legislation. Unlike the member for Dunkley, I can see the broader picture and where this fits in to the whole matrix of our education revolution. I am urging the Deputy Prime Minister to really think seriously about increasing our school infrastructure funding even beyond what we have committed. We have committed $546.6 million during 2008 to state and territory governments and school sectors, particularly through our capital grants program, and that is about helping the most needy schools to construct and upgrade their school facilities. When I look around at the public schools across Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley and Boonah Shire, I can see the disadvantage and I can see the advantage of the kind of assessment that we are talking about in terms of accountability and transparency. Those are the kinds of schools that will benefit so much if the information is there and available. That will show the disadvantage that they suffer and it will mean that those schools, whether they are public or private, will then have a legitimate claim and case for increased funding.

In my area I am pleased to see that we have been rolling out significant assistance to both public and private schools. Our trade training centre policy has had a benefit in my electorate. St Edmund’s Christian Brothers College, which is a fantastic school in the area of trade training, particularly in the wet trades and in engineering, has applied as the lead school and received $2.9 million under our trade training centre program of $2.5 billion over 10 years. The two grammar schools have linked in and the Ipswich Trade Training Centre will make a big difference in the lives of the kids in my electorate. But the public schools also have benefited by the kind of assistance that we have been giving to the state education system.

In conclusion, I would like to say to the schools in my electorate that have been affected by the recent floods and storms: the Rudd government will be with you and stand beside you and give you the kind of help that you need to ensure that our children in the federal electorate of Blair are educated well. I commend the P&C and the teachers in both the public and the private schools for the work they have done, and I commend the bill to the House.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In regard to education I go back to my days at Ferntree Gully Technical School, a very tough school. We had some fantastic teachers indeed. I remember one in particular, Mrs Osland, who was our maths teacher. She did a fantastic job of encouraging all the students to give their best—to give 110 per cent. Her efforts saw people like me and others give 110 per cent when it came to everything we did at our school. Ferntree Gully Technical School has, sadly, been demolished and has been replaced by real estate. It is a sad thing to see that a technical school no longer exists. We now look to St Joseph’s College, which has a technical college, for the future. That was one of the announcements of the previous government. We put the major focus on technical education. I was so proud the day I was with Prime Minister John Howard and the principal, Vin Feeney, at St Joseph’s College. We got to see firsthand what the students at St Joseph’s College were actually doing with their technical school and how proud the students were knowing they were going into a career of technical education.

During the previous federal election campaign the Rudd government promised to build a technical school in Casey in the suburb of Berwick. To this day I do not know what has happened to that proposal and where it is actually going. With one of the fastest growing growth corridors in this entire country, a technical school in the south of my electorate is very much warranted, and I congratulate the former Minister for Vocational and Further Education, Andrew Robb, who during that campaign also made an announcement to build a technical school in the Lakeside, Pakenham or Officer areas. Very sadly, though, as I have stated previously, we actually have not seen anything of the sort being constructed.

A big issue in my electorate during the campaign was the Timbarra secondary school and sporting complex. Timbarra is a new residential area. It had previously been promised by the state Labor government that there would be a secondary school built, so you had all these new people moving to the area and expecting a technical school to be constructed. Sadly, through the wisdom of the state government in Victoria, they decided that they would not actually be building a secondary school and that, in fact, they would be selling the land off! It was only when Councillor Brian Hetherton approached me and told me that in fact the land had not been sold by the state government that there was still some hope that we could use this land and still have a secondary school built there and also have a sporting facility.

We ran a fairly strong campaign, and there were public meetings to see what community interest there was. There was amazing passion and commitment from the residents of Timbarra, who desperately wanted a secondary school to be built. They campaigned long and hard. I know the candidate for Narre Warren North, Mick Morland, made an election commitment to have an education facility built, and it was eventually matched by the Labor member for Narre Warren North, Luke Donnellan. I congratulate the state Labor government for eventually—only due to a large public outcry and demand—coming to the party and saying they would build a secondary school. Sadly, again, to this day I believe it is still in the planning stage, and we have had numerous fights with the Casey City Council. At the end of the day, all governments are there to do the best they can, whether they be state or federal. What we need to see is this school actually being constructed to service this amazing, huge growth corridor. I know that Principal Ian McKenzie from Kambrya College—I believe it was either this year or last year—had 370 year 7 students, which is quite an amazing effort when you think of all those students going to his school. That is why it was so vitally important to have a Timbarra secondary college.

Also, we have the Oatlanders basketball team nearby, and we have Auskick with the football. What we found again was a crying need to have some sporting facilities there. It was during the federal campaign that I made a $2.5 million commitment for a Timbarra sporting complex. This was going to do amazing things to the local area. First of all, we had all these kids in Auskick scattered around various grounds, and we also had the Oatlanders basketball team based down at Dandenong. They wanted a local venue, and they were very passionate about their local venue. I strongly supported their needs. It was so obvious that because of this huge growth in population we needed a basketball and sporting facility.

Then we go to our Investing in Our Schools Program. I say to the members of the Rudd government that it is one of the saddest aspects of the new government that they cut that program. I can see that you could have renamed the program. I am not sure where the education revolution comes from when you actually cut outstanding programs.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was cut in January of 2007 by the Liberal government.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I get an interjection. The former Prime Minister, John Howard, actually made a further commitment to that program. I strongly encourage the Labor members opposite to realise that, whether it be a Liberal Party policy, a National Party policy, a Greens policy or a Labor policy, if it is a good idea it is a good idea. When I was at the Upwey South Primary School the other day, they had just opened their learning centre, and they gave strong praise to the previous government and some praise to me, which I thought was rather flattering. It cost $150,000 for their learning centre, including a chook shed to get the little guys to understand about looking after animals and cooking food and to get involved in making sure they become healthy adults in the future. Those involved in the fundraising at the Upwey South Primary School raised $50,000 of their own money. I say again how disappointed all the schools throughout my entire electorate are that they are not receiving the Investing in Our Schools Program funding.

We also talk about how we are having a revolution with the rollout of computers. I think that in my electorate there are two schools that have received computers. One school in my electorate is Emerald Secondary College. Sadly, under the previous Investing in Our Schools Program funding, Emerald had purchased some computers, so they are basically stuck between a rock and a hard place because they did not actually receive any. The schools which did were St Joseph’s College—I congratulate the government; they got a fair number—and Belgrave Heights Christian School, which I believe only got five. Every other school in my electorate missed out on these computers. So, if we are going to have an education revolution with rolling out computers, let us actually do it and not just talk about it.

Finally, I would like to talk about the Healthy Active Australia program. I know two of my schools applied for it: Kallista Primary School and Ferny Creek Primary School. Again, both missed out, and that was absolutely devastating. What was more devastating is that under the new government they could not get answers; they could not find out whether their application had been accepted or rejected. I find it outrageous when schools have to spend their time finding out what is actually going on. It is one of those things with education.

As I said earlier, I went to a pretty tough school in Ferntree Gully tech, and a lot of my friends, sadly, ended up going to jail or dropping out of the education system. In my maiden speech I spoke about the need to prevent people falling through the gaps of the education system. That is something which to this day I firmly believe in. I know how Belgrave Heights Christian School and its principal, Andy Callow, look after children with special needs—in particular, I believe, those with Asperger’s. The school really take more than their share of the weight when looking after special needs children. One of the problems they have, especially as a private school, is that when the funding transfers from a state school to a private school the funding does not actually go with the child. It stays at the state school. So the private schools such as Belgrave Heights Christian School are really suffering under this, and that is something which I strongly urge the government to change.

Finally, I again congratulate all the hardworking teachers in the electorate of La Trobe. Whether state or private, they do an amazing job. They are the guardians of the future in our younger generation and they have this huge burden and responsibility. I look forward to the education revolution coming. Sadly, in my electorate, it involves two schools with computers. No school actually has any funding for the healthy eating and active learning program. I strongly encourage the government to look at the Investing in Our Schools Program. The Labor members should really hang their heads in shame, especially the backbenchers who allowed their new government to get away with this. It was a first-class program and one which should never have been scrapped.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened to the debate on the second reading of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 in a couple of parts over the course of the last hour. There are some things that keep being repeated by those opposite. One is that the current government ended the Investing in Our Schools Program. Of course, the Investing in Our Schools Program was an excellent program. It was an outstanding program. I have attended many launches of initiatives under that program in schools in my own electorate—two in the last week. What comes to you instantly is that it was a quality program. Whenever I get up to speak in front of the kids and the parents and friends associations at whichever school it is, I always refer to the fact that this was a program that was put in place by the former government. It was a good program with some very good outcomes, but it was also closed by the former government in January 2007. It is disingenuous to come into this place and want to take all the good things but to not take the responsibility for the difficult decisions that you made when in government.

We also frequently hear in this place that this bill is the first step in a process that will undermine non-government schools. That position is just as dopey as the position which Mark Latham took to the election in 2004—which people voted against and which will never be resuscitated again by the Labor Party. It is necessary in this place to learn from your mistakes as well as to build on your strengths. Time and time again, what occurs to me is that members opposite are not good at trial and error learning. They are not good at learning from their mistakes. The Investing in Our Schools Program was a great program. Ending that program was the decision of the former government.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 is an integral component of the Rudd government’s education revolution. It fits into a series of programs which the government has in place that underpins that education revolution. There are tax breaks for families to help them buy computers, to get internet connections and to buy textbooks and schoolbooks. It is about putting computers in schools and it is about vocational training. It is about cooperation with the states. It is a revolution to improve Australia’s education standards, to give parents more confidence in our education system and to better serve the education needs of future generations.

To put this in context, the World Economic Forum report released in 2007 concluded that, when it comes to maths and science teaching, Australia came 29th in the world. The 2007 OECD Education at a glance report found that Australia was spending 4.3 per cent of gross domestic product on all levels of public education, compared with the average of five per cent amongst those nations with whom we would most commonly compare ourselves. It also found that Australian students aged from 12 to 14 spend only 30 per cent of their day on core subjects such as reading, writing, literature, maths, science and foreign languages. So there is a massive amount of work to be done to realign and to refocus our schools on what they do. With students spending so little time on core activities, it was estimated that approximately 50 per cent less time was spent by Australian students on those core subjects than their counterparts in other industrialised nations.

A September 2007 Courier Mail article examined the OECD report and sought academic comment on its findings. Professor Ken Wiltshire of the University of Queensland, a professor of public administration, saw the lack of time being spent on essential core subjects as redefining the need for a national core curriculum that sets out what has to be learnt and how much time should be devoted to the most important subjects. Of course, it is not just the industrialised nations with whom we now need to compare ourselves. As Australia grows in a most dynamic part of our globe we are also seeing our competitors investing in education and producing a generation of highly educated, highly competent young adults who are entering the workforce and driving productivity growth in the countries in our neighbouring environment.

According to 2007 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are 9,581 schools in Australia, with 6,853 government schools and 2,728 independent or Catholic schools. In Western Australia there are 1,068 schools, of which 769 are government schools. In my electorate there are 34 schools of all categories. Across Australia there were almost 200,000 year 12 students enrolled in 2007. As you would expect, in Western Australia, having about 10 per cent of the national population, we have more than 20,000 year 12s. Currently there is no way to tell if the 200,000 students who were enrolled in year 12 last year were well served by their school. Currently, there is no way to tell if the parents of those 200,000 students made the right choices in regard to their children’s education. That is why this government, when in opposition, committed to a national curriculum and national standards as part of an education revolution.

This is not new. It is something that has been discussed at great length on all sides of this parliament and over a very long period of time. I pulled up today a speech by former minister for education, John Dawkins, dated May of 1988 and at that time Minister Dawkins was discussing exactly the same issue. What is different is that we have now stopped talking. With an education minister who has the drive and capacity and a Prime Minister who is focused on education as we have today, it is the opportunity, the time and the right place for us to be making these steps to properly assess how our schools operate and how our kids perform.

The former government, under education ministers Vanstone and Kemp as well as the member for Bradfield and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, delivered very little in 12 long years. They did commission 24 reports resulting in 220 recommendations, but they failed to act like the government before it. In spite of the Prime Minister’s support for a national curriculum and national teaching standards, education ministers from the coalition government did not deliver it for him. International reports slated Australia’s education system. A 2006 OECD study demonstrated that reading literacy had declined from 2003 to 2006. At a time when nations that compete with us for economic opportunities were turning out large numbers of highly competent and highly educated graduates, our numbers in Australia were effectively going backwards. In terms of scientific literacy, 40 per cent of Indigenous students, 27 per cent of remote students and 23 per cent of lower socioeconomic students performed below the OECD baseline. Year 12 completion had reached a plateau of around 75 per cent in 1992, after significant increases in the 1980s and early 1990s. Again, I went back to John Dawkins’s speech of 1988. At that time, he was plotting a course in school retention rates that had risen from the low 30 per cents for boys and girls to the middle 50s and low 60s for boys and girls as the 1980s ended. As the early 1990s started, that share rose again to 75 per cent and it is sad that it did not continue to rise from there.

Figures and facts like these are a large part of the Rudd government’s rationale for committing to an education revolution. Speaking in early 2007, the Prime Minister stated:

…when it comes to Australia’s economic future, our economy needs an education revolution in the quantity of public investment in education, and the quality of the education outcomes we’ve produced.

The then shadow minister for education and training and the now Minister for Foreign Affairs stated when becoming the education spokesman that he strongly supported moves to a national curriculum. Speaking in February of last year, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, then the education shadow minister, made this point:

We are now a much more mobile workforce nation and as a consequence a much more mobile education nation. People are entitled as they move from state to state for employment purposes, to see their children being taught the same things in our primary schools and in our secondary schools.

And he is right. The principal city in my electorate of Brand is Rockingham, which is a Navy base. The people who serve that Navy and serve our nation at HMAS Stirling often carry their kids from school to school around our nation. Getting alignment of curriculum and content is important to giving those parents the comfort and the certainty that their children are being educated in a way that matches national standards and in a way that is the best possible education for children of mobile parents.

The Rudd government’s first budget delivered a $19.3 billion boost in education initiatives over the next four years, including $1.2 billion for the digital education revolution, a $2.5 billion trades training centre program, guaranteed funding to government and non-government schools, national curricula in English, maths sciences and history, and tax incentives for the purchase of computers.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 delivers on a 2007 election commitment. It will create an independent statutory authority. The authority will develop and administer a national school curriculum, including content and achievement standards—satisfying the needs of the men and women who serve Australia’s national interest at HMAS Stirlingand develop and administer national assessments, allowing parents wherever they are in the country to understand more clearly where their child sits within their own school population and where their school sits within the school populations both in the states and across the nation. They will collect, manage and analyse student assessment data and other data relating to schools and comparative school performances. It will facilitate information sharing between Australian government bodies in relation to the collection, management and analysis of school data. It will make public information relating to school education, including information relating to school performance, and provide school curriculum resource services, education research services and other related services. It will provide information, resources, support and guidance to the teaching profession. The authority will consist of a 13-person board of directors appointed by the states and territories, the Commonwealth and the Catholic and independent sectors. It will have a chief executive office and staff for the authority.

This bill will create unprecedented transparency in schooling. For the first time, parents and the community can know what is happening in our schools and how it relates to an agreed set of standards. The bill is about collaborative national reform—that is, working with the states, schools and communities. There are considerable benefits in centralising the management of curriculum. The opportunity to reduce duplication of resources and costs and the resulting greater effectiveness will allow financial efficiency. The states and territories will benefit from a streamlined, simplified and shared national structure through which all Australian governments can drive forward education priorities. This will not remove the state and territory governments’ responsibility for curriculum arrangements. The states and territories will be able to provide nominations to, and endorsed membership of, the authority’s board of directors. Ministers will retain sole responsibility to direct the authority through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

All Australian schools need to be more transparent and more accountable. That benefits parents, teachers and, most importantly, pupils. There is currently no accurate, comprehensive information that would allow rigorous analysis of what schools and students are achieving. As a parent I find that a significant lack in our system. I am pleased that in Western Australia under the WALNA system I get an insight into both the performance of my schools and the performance of my children, but it would be better to have that information on a national database, matched against national standards and not simply local and state standards.

Individual school performance reporting will have three key benefits for Australian students: it will enable analysis and evaluation of school performance, allow a great level of accountability to the public and lead to better resource allocation. For the first time the government will be able to identify schools with particular needs and identify high-performing schools, allowing their best practices and innovations to become visible, understood and then copied. Publicly available information about schools’ performances will encourage schools to be accountable for the public funding they receive. This same information can then be used to identify where resources are most needed to lift the performance of schools.

The debate over schools’ performance invariably includes a discussion of league tables. The government has made it clear that publishing raw test results of individual schools is simplistic and unfair, and it is wrong to evaluate school performance in that way. However, it should be noted that raw league tables are published now in Western Australia through the TEE score publications each January. The government’s approach aims to be comprehensive and sophisticated by comparing like schools. Comparing like schools that serve similar student groups and communities will be a major boost to educational quality and quantity. I have a school on my patch in Mandurah where the student population turns over once every three years. In any given year 30 per cent of that school population can expect to have moved in and moved out. It is a phenomenal turnover rate. A capacity to understand the educational attainment of children in that kind of environment and for teachers to understand what a good and what an outstanding teaching performance look like in that environment will be extremely valuable.

This bill provides the foundation for much of what the education revolution is aimed at delivering. If we are to identify where there is a greater need for educational support, we need a basis for fair, consistent and accurate analysis of how different schools are doing. Comprehensive and accurate information on schools’ and students’ performance informs teachers, parents, principals and governments of what needs to be done. League tables are simply too simplistic. They do not take into account differing socioeconomic status or the numbers of Indigenous kids, children from non-English-speaking backgrounds, children with disabilities and children from highly mobile backgrounds. The information that this bill will facilitate will allow government to look at comparable schools and their results to understand different patterns of disadvantage, to share best practice and innovation and to target support where it is most needed. It is about evidence based policy, evidence based public policy outcomes and applying the best research tools to understand what happens in schools and what best we can do to optimise that for our kids.

There are many new initiatives that we have announced in this place over the course of the last 12 months. We have announced our trades training in schools initiative of $2.5 billion over 10 years, our $1.2 billion digital education revolution, a $62.5 million Local Schools Working Together package and also significant tax deductions and incentives for families to invest in computers, internet, textbooks and educational materials to support their children’s education and acquisition of technology, with a maximum refund of $375 per child in primary school and $750 per child in secondary school. The government is not simply talking the talk. We are walking the walk, and we are putting resources behind this significant need.

I will conclude by saying it is clearly the case and has been identified time and time again by educational research that early childhood education is a critical area of need. We have heard in this place on many occasions over the course of the last 10 months that children in their first five years have the greatest capacity to learn. It makes sense, therefore, that investing at this time in a child’s life and in their education brings the biggest impact for dollars invested. It is why the education revolution stands with a commitment of 15 hours per week for preschool for all kids. In a zero to four program that I attended recently at Warnbro Primary School, I was delighted to see not just the number of kids coming along to enjoy the school environment but most importantly the number of mothers attending too—young mums who were able to talk to other mums from the suburbs nearby to start putting in place the logistics to get their kids to school for the coming year and also to start to understand the role of parents in education, reading books, encouraging attendance and ensuring that kids have a good breakfast before they start school.

All of these programs come together in a way that our government hopes—and I am sure the other side of this House also hopes—is a serious attempt to get our education right, to help our kids as best as we possibly can and to give them a great start for the future. I commend the bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. This bill will establish a new Commonwealth body, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, that will develop and administer the new national curriculum and collect data providing analysis and research to governments.

Although the development of a national curriculum began under the Howard government, and indeed our current coalition policy is in favour of a national curriculum, the opposition has expressed sincere concerns about the direction the curriculum has taken in terms of its content under Labor. We differ from Labor in that the coalition supports flexibility in delivery and will also support choice for schools that wish to offer an alternative curriculum such as International Baccalaureate or Steiner schools. The current eight state and territory curricula and schools have a reasonable amount of freedom at a local level and the current move to a national curriculum in the proposed form will therefore threaten choice and diversity.

While this bill was being drafted the government appointed an Interim National Curriculum Board to work on developing it and that particular board appointed working groups in each of the four subject areas being covered by the curriculum—mathematics, English, the sciences and history. This new authority, ACARA, will assume powers over curriculum and assessment that are currently with state governments and it will be further empowered by its secondary role as the primary data analysis and research centre in relation to student assessment.

According to Dr Kevin Donnelly, the Director of the Melbourne based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down, whose article was published in the November edition of Australia’s Education Review, the importance of the national curriculum both in terms of what is taught and how it will be assessed, described as ‘core content’ and ‘achievement standards’, cannot be overestimated. The new curriculum to be implemented in 2011 and, covering kindergarten to year 12, will be mandated for all schools, government and non-government. While Catholic and independent schools have had some flexibility in relation to adopting government controlled curriculum, such as offering the International Baccalaureate or adopting a particular educational philosophy in the way that Steiner schools provide, in future such diversity and choice will no longer be allowed.

Also the recent Schools Assistance Bill 2008 tabled in the Commonwealth parliament states as a condition of continued funding that non-government schools must teach the proposed national curriculum. According to the Constitution, education is a matter for the states, therefore the Commonwealth government does not employ any teachers or manage any schools and the eight states and territories are responsible for what is taught and how it is assessed. In addition, to be politically correct, the greatest danger in imposing a national curriculum is that teachers wherever they teach will be forced to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. Evaluating school and teacher performance by publicly releasing the results of how effective they are in implementing the national curriculum will only add to the pressure to conform. So much for diversity and choice!

I spoke in the House recently on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and I spoke of my concern that the new requirement in school funding agreements needed to comply with the national curriculum by 2012. Labor also promised not to alter the Howard government’s SES funding model for non-government schools for the 2009 to 2012 funding period. Yet the Schools Assistance Bill, currently the subject of a Senate inquiry, may, going forward, lead to a change in the funding model.

It also mandates that schools comply strictly with the national curriculum, introduces new disclosure requirements that will discourage community fundraising for improving school resources and abolishes establishment grants to new non-government schools. This will make it considerably more difficult for new and developing communities to develop choices and diversity for their children in their local area.

I have previously voiced my concerns that the proposed reporting requirements could even lead to well-run, successful independent schools decreasing their fundraising activities for extracurricular out-of-school activities in order to maintain their Commonwealth funding for day-to-day operations. Their funding could be capped at the 2008 rate, or worse, when non-government schools are forced to reveal their sources of funding, it would make it very simple for a Labor government to justify cutting back its funding contributions to independent schools. I reiterate: this is just simply wrong and is fundamentally flawed. Successful, well-run private schools have well-proven business plans for the future. They expect to continue to be successful, knowing the school board makes sound education and commercial decisions. They do not deserve to be punished for their sound decisions, decisions which include the acquisition of assets for the purpose of educating children.

The measure proposes to cut funding because a school is offering high-quality facilities and resources and is a radical change to the formula for Commonwealth funding for non-government schools. But the funding model also ignores many of the costs involved in offering diversity in education. I noted with interest a submission to the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 from the Queensland Catholic Education Commission, which stated:

We respectfully submit that the funding model fails to recognise the very high costs of enrolling Indigenous students. The cost of supporting these students is significantly higher than that of non-boarding Indigenous students.

At the Senate inquiry the Australian Association of Christian Schools’ chief executive Bob Johnston is reported in the West Australian as saying that benefactors could be reluctant to donate if they were to be named. He said that a business seen to support an independent school could be boycotted by opponents of private education. Independent Schools Council of Australia Executive Director Bill Daniels said:

We consider this to be intrusive and unnecessary and will almost certainly lead to a divisive public debate.

Labor has also announced plans to review school funding in 2010. On the evidence to date it is clear the government intends to return to Mark Latham’s private school hit-list, which is sure to get a re-run. Labor clearly plans to mandate the introduction of the national curriculum before the end of the funding quadrennium in non-government schools as a condition for those same schools to receive funding from 1 January next year even though we have no idea yet what the national curriculum will actually look like.

There is no justification for demanding schools sign up to an unfinished national curriculum proposal that they have not seen in return for funding. As Bethany Hiatt wrote of Christ Church Grammar School headmaster Garth Wynne in the West Australian on Saturday, 8 November:

It is appalling that schools are being held to ransom like this. We cannot operate without the funding but are not made aware of the actual details of the conditions attached until after the event. It is best described as financial blackmail of independent schools.

Earlier in the West Australian on Friday, 31 October Bethany Hiatt also interviewed Hale School principal Stuart Meade, who said:

It is a life lesson we teach our students all the time—don’t sign for something unless you know what you are signing for.

This is a widely held concern. The West Australian reported Senator Steve Fielding as saying that he had been swamped by calls from schools worried about being forced to sign up to the curriculum when the details were unknown. The senator said:

The Rudd Government is saying ‘trust us, we will give you the detail’ but most Australians would like to see the details first because education is such a cornerstone …

He also said:

The last thing schools want to feel is a gun to their head dictating what they can teach kids.

The Deputy Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to confirm that schools currently delivering alternative, internationally recognised curricula will be able to continue to do so. This puts at risk curricula that are designed for high-achieving students and special students and curricula based on alternative educational philosophies that parents may choose as most appropriate for their children. It also potentially puts at risk those faith based schools that teach specific faith based components in addition to their current state curricula.

The Deputy Prime Minister refused to give certainty to these schools by accepting the opposition’s amendment to the Schools Assistance Bill to remove the mandatory application of the unwritten national curriculum. Alternatively, the Deputy Prime Minister could amend the bill to allow ‘application of the national curriculum or an approved equivalent’ or similar legislative language. Instead, in a speech on Monday, 10 November, the Deputy Prime Minister deferred decisions about whether alternative curriculum based schools would be able to continue under ACARA. This means that, under the current government, ACARA will have the final say over whether certain curricula are allowed to continue, such as the International Baccalaureate, University of Cambridge International Examinations, Montessori schools, Steiner schools, Christian schools, Islamic schools, Jewish schools and those in my electorate like Child Side School in Boyanup.

For a national curriculum to succeed, ACARA and the government will need to convince each state education department, each state government and the non-government sector that the national curriculum will not interfere with those aspects of their present curriculum which provide the specialisation or differentiation supported by parents and that, in all other aspects, the national curriculum will be superior to their current curriculum. At this stage we have little idea what the national curriculum actually is for maths, science, history and English. We do know that the framing documents are currently being drafted, but so far the only documents that have been released are the initial advice documents on the history and science curricula. The final documents will not be presented until some time in 2009, yet the Schools Assistance Bill sought to tie the school funding to that particular curriculum’s assessment. The final impact of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008 over the four-year period to 2012 is $37.2 million, made up of $20 million committed to support the work of the National Curriculum Board and $17.2 million initially committed to establish an independent National Schools Assessment Data Centre.

Non-government schools educate more than 40 per cent of Australian secondary students. Parents who take on extra work, save or go without in other areas of their lives just to send their children to non-government schools save the Australian taxpayer billions of dollars. My understanding is that non-government schools educate over 30 per cent of all students in Australia. Government funding assists in offsetting the cost of this education. Parents and students deserve choices in education. This bill is problematic for the 29 non-government schools in my electorate of Forrest. These schools pride themselves on offering a full learning environment for their students, inclusive of pastoral care that nurtures and develops the potential of all students. School boards also recognise that their students are not at their learning institution in isolation from the rest of the community, and a great deal of effort is made to embrace and work in partnership with the community. Parents also take a major and often direct interest in the schools in which they place their children. Through their application process and direct meetings, discussing the needs of their children and what the school has to offer, parents, teachers and principals all take a holistic approach to the education of those in their charge. There is ongoing monitoring and cooperation and a comprehensive information flow from schools to parents and the community through the schools’ dynamic websites that are one working example of their creativity and marketing skills that actively promote the achievements of their students.

Schools’ websites provide a wealth of information, from historical data about the origins of the schools, to vision statements and mission statements, their structure, their staff, curriculum information, discipline policies, current newsletters and virtual tours of schools. Take Mackillop Catholic College in Busselton. It currently has an enrolment of over 500 students from years 8 to 12. There is a strong pastoral focus to ensure the wellbeing of students and reflect the expectations of parents. The religious education program is conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the bishops of Western Australia and helps the students to develop a framework for their beliefs and values. The education program caters for all ability levels and leads to university, TAFE, traineeships and workplace opportunities. The emphasis is on providing opportunities for the development of the whole person—intellectually, physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually.

There is also Ocean Forest Lutheran College in Dalyellup, a co-educational day school established initially as a kindergarten to year 8 school in 2004. Today, in 2008, it caters for over 500 students up to year 12. It is clearly a working example of the need for and growth of independent schooling and the need for parents to have diversity and choice of educational opportunities for their children. An education at Ocean Forest gives students the opportunity to grow in intellect and develop values that are taught within the context of a Christian community that will equip them for their life’s journey in the 21st century. Kearnan Catholic College in Manjimup, originally founded by the Sisters of St Joseph in 1925, provides primary education facilities for local children and draws its secondary students from the surrounding regional areas of Manjimup, Bridgetown, Pemberton, Northcliffe and Greenbushes. The school’s website even provides information about children’s allergies and lists the names of those students as a preventative health measure to inform other parents and the community. I congratulate the school for this foresight.

St Brigid’s School in Collie offers a progressive learning community which nurtures the holistic growth of all children within a supportive Catholic environment. It has a commendable history of providing educational services dating back to 1902. The Cornerstone Christian College in Busselton caters for kindergarten through to year 12. The college board and leadership team aim to bring together and equip a competent team of Christian educators and support staff who are committed to making a life-enhancing investment in the students they serve.

What all this demonstrates is that independent schools in my electorate are well equipped to work within the current education curriculum. It also demonstrates that they do not consider the curriculum to be a single dimension to the education of our youth. Pastoral care of students and connection with parents complete the educational and nurturing environment. Georgiana Molloy Anglican School promotes the ethos of a communication triangle of parents, children and school, and believes that consistent communication is required to bring out the best in a safe and caring learning environment. Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School is another school that nurtures the learning ambitions of its students and has strong pastoral care. The school environment is one that provides opportunities that challenge and extend its students.

I note that the ACARA board composition will include a representative from each state and territory, as well as the Commonwealth, and representatives from the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Schools Council of Australia. I note that in appointing board members section 14 requires that the ministerial council ensures that members of the board collectively possess an appropriate balance of professional expertise in matters relating to school curriculum, school assessment and data management, analysis and reporting in relation to school performance, financial and commercial matters in relation to the management of educational organisations, and corporate governance. None of the five criteria for the composition of the board requires that anyone who has ever been a teacher should be a member of the board, and I believe it is particularly important that practising teachers should be consulted extensively in the committees and working groups under the ACARA board.

It concerns me that the government’s move, through the Schools Assistance Bill, requires additional financial information from non-government schools’ funding sources to be collected by the data collection and analysis arm of ACARA. However, while ACARA’s new powers in relation to the curriculum are considerable, they follow from the commitment to having a national curriculum that is designed to replace the eight current curricula around Australia, after the appropriate consultation and consideration. It is reasonable, therefore, to accept that ACARA will be the instrument to support the development and administration of a national curriculum.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. I do it with great pleasure. I have spoken before in this House on a range of education related matters and bills. In particular, I am very proud that it is the Rudd Labor government that has stepped into the breach, into that yawning gap that existed for so long in this country where we needed a substantial and credible education revolution—exactly what we are providing. What we have before us today is part of that revolution and part of what will be a substantial move forward in the level and quality of education provided in this country.

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch gave a very frank assessment of public education in Australia when he spoke at the Boyer Lecture. He said:

The unvarnished truth is that in countries such as Australia, Britain and particularly the United States our public education systems are a disgrace. Despite spending more and more money, our children seem to be learning less and less—especially for those who are most vulnerable in our society.

Today the global economy is raising the bar for success. The need is urgent: countries like Finland and Korea and Singapore are leaving us behind when it comes to education. We need to reform our public education system—and make our schools internationally competitive with the best of them.

He went on to say:

The truth is this: a public school system that does not serve the least of society betrays its mission. The failure of these schools is more than a waste of human promise, and a drain on our future workforce. It is a moral scandal that no one should tolerate. A basic education—and the hope for a better life that it brings—ought to be the first civil right of any decent society.

I could not have put it better myself—but perhaps with just one small change: rather than just say our ‘public school system’, I would say ‘our schools’. I think that is the extent to which work is needed in Australia. It involves all of our schools. We all need to lift the bar and lift the standard.

There is no question that what has happened certainly over the last decade but also over a longer period of time is that more and more money has been pumped into our education system, with fewer and fewer outcomes. That is something I do believe. I think we see that in the results when assessments and other measurements are taken. It is a sad indictment. There are many reasons for that being the case. Perhaps today, in a much more sophisticated and fast paced world where learning is different, where the amount of information available is beyond count, where the pressure on young children to perform is enormous, where the amount of information that can be taught is sometimes attempted to be taught and where the resources drain on our schools, be they independent or government, there is an enormous challenge for all of us. That is why something major had to be done—something serious, something that would break the nexus of what we had just seen in the past and something that would take us on a new road in educating all of our children. I believe that is what we are now doing. I believe that is the road we have taken.

It is really simple to put it in context—that is, if we just kept going on the road that we were travelling on at least for the past decade, nothing at all was going to change. It would be the same old arguments and the same tired old debates about public versus private—that dragged out, politicised and completely meaningless betrayal of our children. That useless debate that we saw from the former government was an absolute betrayal of young minds and of parents. That debate about the percentage of funding versus the percentage of kids that go to certain schools in certain areas is an absolute crock. It is just simply garbage. It is made up to confuse people about the reality and the core value of what education is meant to be and what education is all about.

It is about all of our children equally. It is about every single young person in this country having an opportunity to realise their best potential and to obtain the best possible education that they can from the school they attend in the region they live in and not just simply being blinded and fooled by the rhetoric and the politicised, poll driven views about what makes people instantly gratified—‘I am a taxpayer and I should get more back just in my school.’ It is very simplistic. I find it a very rude approach to what education policies should be in this country.

If we are meaning to make a difference to young people in this country, if we are to lift the standard, if we are to bring about a real educational change, if we are to deliver something substantial and real, if we want to compete with our neighbours, we have got the message. The real test for us as a country is: are we lifting our standard to meet the international standards of our nearest neighbours and competitors? Unfortunately, the answer to that would be: not enough. We have not been good enough. We have been good to a certain level, but soon that will not be enough, so we need to make a major change. That change is contained, in part, in the bill that we have before us. It is about doing something at the national level—something difficult but something real—about measuring and assessment for the right reasons. It is not about some simplistic table where you just rank everybody from one to 100 and, if you are at the top, you are good and, if you are at the bottom, you are bad. That is not what it is about. If anyone truly looks closely at what the drive and the motivation is in trying to provide a better system across this whole country then they will understand that, if you use data correctly with the right motivation, it can be of assistance and helpful. That is exactly what this is all about.

I have always had the view that, if you have more than one system, they might be good but one of them will not be as good as the others. This is the problem we have had in Australia. We have too many different systems of education—difference in funding models and complications in how we determine what school gets what and which child gets what percentage of funding. In the end, it really ought to be turned on its head and we should all ask ourselves, ‘How can we best serve the young people of this country to give them the best opportunity?’ I believe that everybody in this place has the same belief. That belief is as simple as this: all of us have opportunities through education and, in the end, it really does not matter where you are born and where you come from as long as you get a great shot at education because that is your meal ticket for life, that is your passport not only to freedom but to a future, to changing your own family history and to success.

The evidence is all around us. It is in any country on the face of the planet. It is around us here in Australia. When you give disadvantaged kids an opportunity, they succeed. When you give Indigenous communities an opportunity, they succeed. When you give young people from so-called low socioeconomic areas and the so-called wrong side of the tracks great opportunities, great things come out of that. I think we have seen that in a whole range of areas. There are hundreds of people we can point to who have had those opportunities and done great things.

It does not matter which country you come from but I want to particularly focus here on Australia and I want to set the scene. If we truly want to make a difference, we have to make some hard decisions. That is what we are doing through our education revolution and through this bill today. Across the nation there are thousands of hardworking, underappreciated public school teachers and non-public school teachers striving to give our school children the very best start in life that they can. But the best efforts of those teachers in this country have been, I believe, undermined and torn apart by the tired old debates that I referred to earlier. It is not a competition between government and teachers. It is not a competition between state and state. The competition is in providing the best possible educational outcomes for all of our kids, every single one of them, wherever they live. It is about understanding that the central importance of educating people is giving them a better opportunity in life.

It is a disgrace, but the blame for things that have happened in the past need not be as important as the things that we need to do in the future. But I do want to make this remark: it is not so much about blame as about missed opportunity. You will hear a number of speakers on this bill criticise the government. They will criticise the government about the actions and the forward movement that we are taking to get education right in this country—although maybe not the opposition member over there nodding his head. But the opposition are standing up and criticising every single bit of education reform in the tough decisions we are taking. But they are doing it in a funny way. They are doing it in that old two-step—one foot on one side of the street and one foot on the other. None of what we are doing is good enough but yet, funnily enough, they are saying that we have copied most of it and that it really is just their old policies.

I think they have got it wrong on both counts because our policy is actually good enough and we will build into the future and it is not their old policy. It may appear if you skim the surface that there are similarities in certain parts, but when you scratch below the surface and you look at the work that has been put into delivering this bill and the other bills we are putting forward in the education revolution then you will understand the full depth of what we are trying to achieve. It is about reward. It is about ensuring assessment. It is about bringing out the best in people. It is about ensuring measurement. It is about making sure that funding goes to the schools that need it the most first. It is about ensuring that the kids who need a hand up get that hand up.

It is not just about a league table; it is not just about which school is a Christian school, a Muslim school, an independent school or a state school. I do not care which school it is. I do not care. I do not care if it is a Catholic school, an Anglican school or a Muslim school. To me they are all valuable. All of those schools are equally valuable. They all contribute to educating our children. They all contribute to the wellbeing of this nation and to the economy of this nation. Why should we in this place discriminate in the way we provide resources to those schools? We heard from speakers on the other side the argument over percentages. They said that parents work very hard to send their kids to independent schools. That is true. They do. And so do parents who send their kids to government schools. They all work very hard. It is not as if one parent necessarily works harder than another. Parents do the very best they can. They do what they can with what they have.

What we in this place ought to do is make sure that, wherever parents send their children to school—whether they send them to a school they choose or whether they have no choice—that school is properly funded and resourced by the Commonwealth, by the states, by local government, by the school community, by the larger community, by fundraising efforts and by whatever other mechanisms those schools have available to them. We in this place are all clever enough to understand that not every school community, be it independent or government, has the same availability of resources or capacity for fundraising. You need to be able to fund schools based on need. That is at the core of this. That is at the core of what we are trying to achieve and will achieve with this bill.

For the first time in this country we will draw together a national curriculum, a national assessment scheme and a national reporting scheme. It will be at arm’s length from government and it will be removed far enough to be able to make independent judgements and assessments. The board will be made up of people appointed by government and others who are independent and who have the right experience. It will be a strong collection of people who can make core value judgements based on a policy framework that we have put forward. It will ensure not only that resource allocation is right but that the quality and standard of teaching in this country is raised and that the outcomes for children in this country are raised higher. You must do that in cooperation with the states, with the schools, with the parents and with the community. That is exactly what we have done. We have more than just policy and an educational framework; we have done more than just talk the talk. We heard it before, but we are actually walking the walk as well and that means putting cash on the table.

The only way you can achieve what we are setting about to achieve is if you properly resource schools, if you properly resource the states to play their role and if you properly resource parents. We are doing all of that. We are putting computers in schools. We have heard the criticisms. But the criticisms are a little bit hollow. It is pretty hard to complain if your school is one of those schools getting computers. I have not seen too many schools knocking them back. I understand there are some issues about infrastructure and maintenance funding, but they are issues we will work through in the future. Right now the priority is to get those resources into those schools.

We are for the first time giving parents the ability to claim back through the tax system educational expenses. The opposition will cry all sorts of tears, but the reality is that the opposition had 12 years to take some action and 12 years to turn things around. They had 12 years to go to the parents they supposedly supported—particularly with respect to independent schools—but what did they actually do for them? Did they give them a tax break? Did they give them opportunities? Did they better resource them to provide better outcomes? Did they work with teachers? Did they sit down with the teaching community in this country? No. They fought them head on. No matter what the opposition think of teachers—and we know what they think because it is on the record—in the end they are the people who teach our children. They are the ones we entrust. Those teachers probably spend more time with our children than most of us do—and that is particularly felt in this place. They are highly influential people. Shouldn’t we invest in them as well? Shouldn’t we provide those we entrust with the education of our children with the greatest tools available to ensure they are best suited and best trained? Shouldn’t we lift the bar for teaching standards in this country and work with them?

That was not the approach we saw. We did not see that approach from the opposition when in government for 12 years. We saw them fight teachers, fight state governments and fight state schools. They wanted a battle—a battle with no point and no end; a battle that did not seek an outcome about kids, about children; a battle that in the end was about their politics, not about our children’s future and our children’s education. That is the stark difference. That is the gaping chasm, which I referred to at the start, between where we on this side of the House stand and where the opposition now sit.

People understand that. I think it has taken a while for all of us to get to the point where we in this country have some sophistication and a core understanding of what it is about. It is about children. It is about education. It is about making sure that we have the right mechanisms in place. This bill will provide that. This bill will provide a national curriculum focus. It will mean that the standard that we set, the high bar that we set, will be the same across Australia. Regardless of which state or territory you come from, you will have the same opportunities. In the end, that is what government should facilitate. It should facilitate the provision of opportunities. It should not squabble over what percentage the Commonwealth believes it should or should not put into a particular school sector compared to what the state puts in. In the end, regardless of who says how much the percentage is, it comes out of the same bucket of money—that is, taxpayers’ money. That is the bottom line.

If we are going to be true to the taxpayer and true to the parents who want the best possible outcome for their kids then we have to do the right thing. This bill sets the government and this country on that path. This is about an education revolution. We will deliver on everything that we have promised. This bill sets the groundwork. There is a lot more work to be done. But this bill in the end will be part of how we manage and increase resources for every single child in this country, to give them the best possible education with the best possible teachers. It will be part of how we remain internationally competitive, how we lift the standard in this country and how we make sure that funding and resources are provided to schools and kids based on need, not on where or who they are. I commend the bill to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the second opportunity I have had to make a contribution to a debate centred around a national curriculum. My comments will be specific to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Bill 2008. I will reiterate that, as a major in the Australian Army, I was constantly hearing of the problems faced by Defence families and, in particular, the children of those families who had to move interstate, on average, every two years. The social dislocation for children or young adults is one issue. It is very difficult to overcome and will always cause problems for families. I know that Defence is always thinking about that and working on it, but the issue of a standard curriculum across the country is a bit easier to resolve. It just needs the cooperation of the states, which appears to have been achieved after the obstructionism, brinkmanship and empire defences that have characterised their intransigence for some years. Yet, despite the need for a common start date, I remain concerned about some aspects of a national curriculum. To illustrate these issues I will refer to elements of the Minister for Education’s second reading speech and highlight what was said in the context of the national curriculum.

In the minister’s introductory remarks, she mentioned the education tax refund, which she stated was for educational expenses incurred since July this year. I am sure that with this bill the government wants eventually to have the opportunities for education standardised across the country, yet whenever I hear the government speak about the education tax refund I do not know whether they are talking about the same bill as the one for the refund that I have seen. After all, the government’s refund applies almost entirely to computer hardware, software and peripherals. I can assure the government that education expenses are much broader than that. At the local state school my children attend, there are expenses for uniforms, excursions, incursions and voluntary P&C fees, which all have to be paid by parents, and yet the education tax refund does not assist with those expenses. Recently I had a conversation with one of the local union reps in one of the schools in my electorate. She had seen a copy of some of my comments when I spoke on the education tax refund bill, and it concerned me a little when she said that the union had been saying exactly the same sorts of things that I had said in my speech. But I think we can agree that there is common ground when people are concerned about what is best for children and their families to make sure they have the best opportunities.

I would like to refer to another school in my electorate, the Blackmore Primary School, in Girrawheen, because this year that school will close after 25 years. I emphasise that for 25 years the staff have been assisting the children of Girrawheen, or more correctly of the western area of Girrawheen, along the path to a good education. The school is to be closed after an unfortunately irreversible decision by the former government of Western Australia and in spite of the strong support for the school from the school community and, indeed, from the wider community in that part of Girrawheen. I will speak about Blackmore Primary School because Girrawheen is a suburb that struggles with a lower than average socioeconomic standing. It is because of those challenging socioeconomic circumstances in Girrawheen that the need for education is so fundamentally important for the children who live there. Every opportunity must be given to lock children into a culture of attendance and participation. Only then will the considerable potential of the suburb be transformed over time into a reality of opportunity and great success.

The question then becomes: how is this best achieved? Undoubtedly, the attitude of parents is central to such an outcome, but close to that is the need for a child to fit in. It is important for a child to feel like a full participant in all school activities. They want to belong. This is very important to a child, and it is all the more important in areas where there is disadvantage. So I would again encourage the government to look at extending the list of expenses for which the rebate can be claimed—that is, if the improvement of educational outcomes is what the bill is all about. I am confident that the majority of children in Girrawheen and in other areas with great potential want, first and foremost, just to fit in. I know that the final graduating class at Blackmore Primary School wishes to have graduation or leavers shirts and I know that their parents would like to have the education tax refund apply to those shirts. They would also like to have a tax break or refund that takes into account the need for their children to fully participate in all school activities. Yet under the Rudd government’s education tax reform, none of these actually count. But if a family can afford $1,000 for a computer at home they will be able to participate, or if they want to buy software that also is included. I say again that there are schools around this country where the children would prefer to fit in by just having a uniform on—for them that is a priority before the selection of software. I also say incursions, excursions and participation are more important for them than thinking about having a printer installed.

Before moving on, I will just wish the staff, parents and children of Blackmore Primary School all the best for their future. At a recent assembly I spoke to the students about how they should go out to their new schools and add value. They should be positive and take what they have gained at Blackmore to their new schools. I also take this opportunity to thank the leaders at Blackmore Primary School—Russell Hahn, the principal, and Darrilyn Dawson, the deputy—for their leadership in difficult times, always maintaining the focus on quality education. I also acknowledge Tory Clerke, a mother and strong advocate for the school, for her unwavering support for the school and the Girrawheen community. I will leave the education tax refund there and move on.

I have also spoken previously on the alternative curricula, in particular the International Baccalaureate as well as the Montessori and Steiner systems. In looking over past and recent statements by the minister on the future of these options, I would say that they are less than reassuring. As recently as Monday, 10 November, the minister was not able to state unequivocally that these options would be able to continue under the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority; instead, she laid it on the authority. I would have thought it was a simple question and I think it is unbelievable that the government struggles with an unequivocal answer on the subject. I cannot believe that the government is contemplating any form of attack on alternative education systems, so why not just run with a straight answer that, yes, they will be allowed and that the authority will take steps to make sure that these systems are recognised?

A case in point and an area of concern that I think remains unanswered is the future of some of the alternative education schools. I recently visited the ALTA-1 school in Landsdale. It is a private independent school which provides education for young people aged between 15 and 19 years. The education it provides is very practical, with English, vocational maths, beliefs and values, independent living, personal development, vocational readiness and workplace learning being the subjects and the focus. The school caters specifically for young people who really know what it is like to come from a background of disadvantage. Some have disabilities, many have lived on the streets and some have been abused in the worst possible ways. The reality is that all have done it tough. The staff provide specific and personalised education. It depends on volunteers but it does not fit into the normal curricula, and ALTA-1 and schools like it need the appropriate consideration by the authority. I would also like to acknowledge the commitment of the staff at ALTA-1, led by Dave Stevens—Mark Godfrey, Karlee Abbott, Joshua Brown, Joshua Hotchkin, Kerry Stevens and Teena Jennings—and also their dedicated volunteers, Scott Jones, Chris Abbott, Rachel Abbott and Emma Abdula.

I would next like to turn my attention to the threat of ideological bias in a national curriculum. It would be good to see a government repudiation of all things ideological in the curriculum to be developed. Clearly, selection of those involved to drive the curriculum should have been easily able to show how none of those selected had any forms of bias coming along with them. The term ‘transparency’ is appropriate, or should have been, in this matter. Academics are the appropriate ones to provide advice in curriculum development; that is without question. I say again that no evidence of bias, no history of political bias and no background of party membership or political affiliation should have been prerequisites for those entrusted with the development of a curriculum that the government wanted to be balanced and objective. Perhaps that is true. If the government really wanted a balanced and objective curriculum, then those entrusted to develop it would have met the criteria that I just described. I hope the point is not too subtle in this place.

I think that it is reasonable to assume that there are many academics across this country that could easily meet the minimum standards of balance and objectivity that I have described. There are plenty of academics with a history of writing works that are even-handed and who have a track record of encouraging their students’ inquiring minds and conducting classes or tutorials where alternative viewpoints are respected—provided, of course, that they are backed up by reasoned argument.

I know that, when speaking of the history curriculum, much has been made of the lead contributors’ allegiances and consequently a particular view of the world, such as a former member of the Communist Party who published works on Marxism and the Communist Party in Australia. I think it is fair to say that a question remains about the balance and objectivity of such a person. I therefore worry about the view of Australia’s past that will shape the future.

I will draw on a recent example of what the ABC provides as a documentary: The Howard Years. I find it very interesting because, while it provides much fact, it does not seem to delve into the reasons why a lot of the initiatives were actually required. A great example was a mention of the funding cuts in the first term. I do not recall any mention of the undisclosed previous government’s deficits. It is therefore appropriate that the national history curriculum is developed with a strong emphasis on the assessment of our history with balance and a consideration that decisions were made on the circumstances of the time rather than assessing the past from the perspective of the present.

It also goes without saying that debate should be allowed with respect being given to alternative viewpoints. I know that alternative viewpoints seem to be discouraged greatly in this place with the change of government. You only have to sit in this place for a while to know that some alternative viewpoints are not respected and are treated with great intolerance—for example, the debate on the wide and varied science of human produced climate change. That debate is constantly restricted. Those that offer alternative viewpoints are derided as sceptics or deniers, tags delivered with a sneer and a level of contempt which is pretty odd given the shortage of all but one real scientist in this place. Nevertheless, come the inquisition on this matter of religious zeal, I am not sure if it will be today’s heretics who are the ones that will be burnt at the stake.

Similarly, the extreme views about past decisions of former governments now seem to be able to be made without any balanced or opposing views being accepted. I would just briefly like to pay a tribute to one of the rare examples of balanced reporting that still remains in this country. I refer to the Debate magazine published by the Australian Christian Lobby under the leadership of editor David Yates. Prior to a meeting with the ACL, I had another read of Debate and I would say that it is a rare magazine that offers those holding opposing views the chance to be printed. For example, both sides of the euthanasia debate were covered, and I commend the Australian Christian Lobby for their balance and objectivity in this matter.

I would like to move back to the matter of bias in education, and to emphasise the point I will refer to some of the public submissions made to the Senate inquiry into academic freedom. What these comments clearly show is the need for protection of students from bias. I would like to see the national curricula offer such protections in the future.

I will read from some of these submissions. Here is the first one:

I am a year 12 student and this year we were required to study Industrial Relations.

…            …            …

Although the assessment task at the end of the term made it open for us to be for or against the topic of the new IR laws and unions—

This obviously relates to last year and the year before—

all the information that was given to us was against the Howard government, against Workchoices and encouraging anyone who works to join a union.

…            …            …

I sat there throughout this topic with the children around me in class dumbfounded and confused as to why Howard was such a ‘horrible’ prime minister and had such ‘little’ care for the average person and to me that is an incorrect motion for children to have in their minds. Yes, I totally agree that this issue does need to be taught in school, but it doesn’t need to be so biased towards one way of life, one government or one person’s ideas.

This is another one

This is my first year studying social sciences at university. I have found the constant Liberal-bashing, jokes and Labor pushing agenda threatening and frustrating.

…            …            …

In particular, during Aboriginal studies week the staff constantly highlighted that past and present Labor governments dealt with Aboriginal issues more effectively and that the Howard Government has ‘gone backwards’. I thought University was about freedom of speech, I have not found that—it can’t go on any longer. I would really like it if lecturers and tutors were neutral.

Here is another comment:

Those who influence student opinion and attitude for the purposes of their own political agendas should not be in one of our society’s most fundamental positions. Again, the trust given to teachers can be abused, by forcing radical unilateral opinions onto the nubile minds of our youth. Perhaps better work standards should be employed for educational institutions to ensure that teachers don’t turn their classrooms into re-education camps.

Here are some scans from a textbook, Economics, Business Ethics and Law, a text book written by a lecturer from the School of Law at the University of Western Sydney. The language of the text, which is apparently the main source for the course, is pretty much along Marxist and socialist lines. Here is a great quote:

The capitalist ruling class want a system of laws capable of protecting their wealth and privilege and facilitating their market operations. At the same time, they want laws that in no way impinge upon or restrict their own profit maximising operations.

Here is another one:

Such ‘public order’ offences as strikes, occupations, pickets and demonstrations declared illegal by public authorities have a clearly political dimension, as direct challenges to capitalist property relations and capitalist power. Given the centrality of the social class struggle involved it is not surprising that it will probably be the more organised and class conscious elements of the working class that are mainly involved.

It would seem that a lot of this stuff is linked back to the 1920s, following the Bolshevik Revolution, but I am afraid it is very recent stuff indeed. Here is another high school experience of one of those who made a submission to the Senate:

One of my high schools (a well-established public selective high school) was a stellar example of how bias works in practice. The graduate they were most proud of was “Justice” Michael Kirby, they have “Not happy, John!” signs posted prominently at the front gate, our keynote speaker at our graduation was Gough Whitlam, and Carmel Tebbutt seemed to be a reasonably frequent visitor there in my final year. The themes of Mr Whitlam’s, Ms Tebbutt’s and Mr Kirby’s speeches were overtly political and critical of conservative view points.

They only received one side of all the arguments. I will not pursue any more of those comments.

What I would say about this matter is that the government have taken this opportunity, and they appear to have got the states onside, to create a national curriculum. That is good provided it has due respect for alternative systems. I look forward to that being clearly stated by the minister, hopefully; if not—if she does not want to say it—then by the authority in due course. The greatest concern I have is that there is a sense of balance and that the viewpoints of one side—any side, really—is the only side of the argument, whether it is political, sociological or historical, that children in our schools hear. I think that is a great tragedy if that is the case. There seems to be plenty of evidence that this is most definitely the case in universities where conservative viewpoints are derided and do not offer the same opportunity for marks as more left-wing options. But in schools in particular there are some teachers, unfortunately, that promote one side of things. Through the national curriculum I would hope that the government and the authority can deliver a balanced and bias free education.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.