Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to join Senator McKenzie in contributing to the debate on the report by the Select Committee on School Funding that has been presented to the Senate and, of course, to support the dissenting report to which Senator McKenzie and I are signatories. One of the disappointing aspects of this particular inquiry was that, from the very start, one could have predicted what the report and its recommendations were going to present to the Senate. That, to me, is tremendously disappointing because I have always felt that the practice of the committees on education was to provide the opportunity for us to listen openly to and be influenced by a range of witnesses. I fear, from the hearings I have been able to attend, that that has not happened.

Can I say through you, Acting Deputy President, to Senator Wright: I have a lot of regard for you but I reject out of hand these assertions that in some way the coalition senators favour a private education process over a public education process. I can think of no instance of this sort of division in the hearings or in the commentary of you, or Senator O'Neill, Senator Collins, Senator McKenzie or Senator Williams, who I recall was at the Sydney hearings, and I do not think it contributes either to the discussion and debate or enhances the status of the Senate to hear those sorts of comments and commentary.

It is the overall objective of all of us in this place to see early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary education standards raised. Where we differ is over the automatic assumption that throwing dollars at something equals a better performance. We know this is not the case, as we have conducted inquiries in the education space, on teaching and learning, for example. We know that from when we have examined excellence in Finland, in Shanghai in China, in Singapore and in other jurisdictions. Indeed we know from our own country that throwing money at this type of issue is not the solution.

I sat on the Catholic Education Commission in Western Australia for many years and have heard these arguments. I remember in the case of my own school, Aquinas College, that the development manager said on one occasion that we had to increase the fees because Aquinas was falling behind other schools. I had in my possession the knowledge of which Catholic schools had been the best performing for year 12 in the previous year. Senator Bullock would of course know Koondoola. The highest performing school in that particular systemic section was Mercy College, Koondoola. I argued strongly in that particular meeting at Aquinas College that if they actually wanted to see academic excellence being indicated at Aquinas then the best thing would be to drop the frees to the levels of Mercy College Koondoola.

The point I want to make is that there are many other issues. There is the excellence of selection of trainee teachers. There is the excellence, or otherwise, of the actual education that trainee teachers get. Senator McKenzie will remember—as may Senator Wright and also Senator Marshall, who has come into the chamber at the right time!—the evidence presented to us by the University of Melbourne personnel at our hearing into teaching and education in schools in Victoria. They said that less than 50 per cent of new teaching graduates felt they were classroom ready on the day they arrived to teach. I hasten to say, of course, that that university, whose teacher education program was a master's program, believed from their own surveys that their students were better than 90 per cent ready. So we know, again, that there are issues associated with the actual education of teachers.

Only yesterday was attention drawn to an article in a Sydney newspaper, saying that some 600 new teaching graduates were yet to find work. We had identified this, and I believe the school funding inquiry also had the opportunity to reinforce this. Why, for heaven sake, do we send young people into teacher training and not give them advice or guidance on those areas of education in which they will be in demand? For example, in the secondary sector: in technology, in science and in mathematics. Why are they not told this when they first go into teacher training? Supply and demand are something that we all know about. There is a supply of young people and there is a demand; and yet we have this circumstance in which vast numbers of young trainee teachers go through and come out to teach physical education.

We had evidence from teachers in one Tasmanian school, who told us that this particular gentleman was the only teacher in his school qualified to teach the sciences and mathematics. On a daily basis he had other teachers, whose skill sets lay in physical education and the social sciences, coming to him and asking in advance, 'What will I teach today?' Those are the sorts of areas that need canvassing.

I know that when Professor Henry Ergas appeared at the hearing in Sydney that some senators, almost before the man started to speak, had formed an adverse opinion about Professor Ergas's contribution. And yet the man was absolutely erudite. Senator O'Neill, Senator Wright, Senator McKenzie and I were all there. Senator Collins had had to leave the hearing, if my memory serves me correctly. Every question put to him and every point made to him was answered with courtesy. It was a dignified response but, of course, a very knowledgeable response. And yet I did not see that in the majority report; perhaps it was because Senator Collins had to leave that hearing in Sydney prior to his evidence. I did not hear any commentary to any extent about the challenging points that he made. And, if we recall, he was making them about the validity of expenditure. In fact, in many instances he was making the case that the way that funds were being expended was adverse for people in lower socioeconomic circumstances.

In the hearings that we have had in the education space we have identified four—not three, but four—groups of disadvantage: children from low-socioeconomic homes, those of Indigenous background, those with disability and, of course, students from rural, regional and particularly remote areas. Because of her interest and mine in rural and regional students, Senator McKenzie and I have tried to elevate their inclusion in this place and it is good to see, now, the conversation actually extending to include them. We have had evidence come before committees of this Senate identifying that gross disadvantage which exists.

I would have hoped for a far more collaborative and collegiate—