PUBLIC EDUCATION VOICE

ACSSO has been cautious in its response to the budget. This is because election year budgets often tell only half the story. The Government has shown in the past that election campaigns can create the need for new initiatives along the way...

The highly successful Investing in Our Schools program seems set to vanish, despite the public benefits it brought. Investing is our number one priority and ACSSO will campaign for that scheme to be renewed.

We invite all schools to write to their local Members of Parliament to support the programme’s revival.

ACSSO will also campaign for the establishment of the Family School and Community Partnership Bureau - which will provide a service to spread best practice about how schools can work closer to their parents and their communities.

The $5 billion fund to generate income for universities was the big ticket item: at least as interesting were the small initiatives that came in under the radar. Intelligent pilot initiatives which present an appropriate model for Federal governments to shape education in a positive and strategic way.

In particular we commend the Summer Schools for Teachers programme and the National Student Aptitude Tests for Tertiary Admission trial.

The first provides incentives for teachers to gain extra professional development in literacy and numeracy, English, Maths, Science and Australian History. Teachers who take these 10 day courses will be eligible for up to $5000 in bonuses.

Such proposals were first raised in ACSSO’s Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Schools.

The second provides for universities to conduct aptitude testing to see if some students have the capacity to benefit from university education, even if they have not qualified for formal tertiary entrance. It is another way to mitigate the often frenetic emotions that surround university entrance scores. It also inhibits the university “tail” wagging the secondary education “dog”. A current criticism is that secondary school systems are driven by the competitive needs of the 30% of students who are aiming for university. Alternative entrance pathways will ease some of that pressure.

The incentives for apprentices to stay in training, such as the $1,000 grant, are a welcome response to the skilled trades shortage and the need to encourage young people to choose a vocation that suits their skills and interests.

However, a half-billion on literacy and numeracy vouchers is not a cost effective way to provide assistance to students who do not meet those benchmarks. How far will $700 go, especially if the private tutors do not connect regularly with the student’s school? It would be much better to provide that money direct to the schools, some of whom could cluster to provide a comprehensive service to students who struggle.

Now for the big one. Has the “education budget” favoured the private education sector more than public schools? Unfortunately, the answer is still yes. ACSSO exists to promote a strong public education system. We are deeply concerned about the effects on Australian society if children are segregated into schooling based on religious or income differences.

In response to our concerns, the Federal government’s message remains the same. They say the states should look after the equities of the state system (though some states also give up to 30% to private schools) while the Federal Government’s policy positively discriminates in favour of the private schools (about 70% of their recurrent funds go to private schools even though that sector has only about 30% of all students). Like Queen Victoria, “We are not amused”.

Jenny Branch
President, Australian Council of State School Organisations

The Rudd Training and Language Packages

It’s been a long time since education held the front pages as now with the Rudd Education Revolution and the Government’s attempts to outflank him via the budget.

Languages

ACSSO applauds the $65 million National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools package. ACSSO has long called for a major improvement in the way we teach foreign languages – and for a major increase in the numbers of Australian students achieving a second language.

Currently and for many years, only some 13% of year 12 students take a foreign language. This is a national disgrace that will handicap Australia’s future economic and social development unless we address it now.

Incidentally, the same year group in the Netherlands has 99% of students studying at least one foreign language.

ACSSO’s National Survey of parent attitudes to foreign languages has helped to spark the debate about the critical importance of Australians connecting with their regional neighbours.

Business has failed to provide a lead, which means that Rudd is correct in identifying this as an area where the Government needs to provide leadership. Strange, but true, the rest of the world do not always speak English – and, while Australia has one of the most multicultural societies in the world, we do not tap into that asset.

National Training Package

The major drive of Kevin Rudd’s $2.5 billion Trades in Schools Programme is to motivate young people to take up the trade skills so desperately needed for our future prosperity.

The package is aimed at getting secondary school students to experience computer and trade skills and to resource schools to carry out that mission. Capital funding of $2.5 billion will be provided to enable all secondary schools to apply for up to $1.5 million each to build or upgrade their trade and computer centres. The targets are students in year 9 and upwards; an earlier intervention than any previous schemes - and one that is aimed at improving school retention rates.

ACSSO supports this scheme. In the 21st century it has become obvious that the separation between academic disciplines and trades has become blurred. Degrees in economics should go hand in hand with computer literacy and other practical skills. There will be cross-overs as hospitality graduates have economics and catering skills, photographers and musicians need computer skills and so on.

In consultation with key stakeholders, the control of Australian Technical Colleges will be handed to the State and territory and Catholic and Independent school sectors to ensure an integrated approach to trades skills.

To encourage industry-school co-operation in this area, payments of up to $10,000 will be made directly to individual schools to broker on-the-job training and work experience.

These initiatives are visionary in their scale and scope – and intensely strategic and practical in their implementation: reshaping the ways we operate today, to better equip our young people for the needs and challenges of tomorrow.

• Editorial Comment
• Investing in Our Schools
• An Education Revolution in the Making
• ACSSO's Blueprint for Tomorrow's Schools
• ACSSO Affiliates

Should the Investing in Our Schools program continue?

What does your school community think about this?

• Write to your local federal MP and tell them what you think and how your feel.
• We also encourage you to email your thoughts to us at acsso@acsso.org.au. All responses will be collated and presented by ACSSO in a submission to the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training as part of our campaign to keep this program for schools.

A major outcome of ACSSO’s 2006 National Conference was a consultative process to develop a series of discussion papers, each of which would focus on the a key issue identified by Conference – and on the effective and necessary strategies to take those issues forward into the future.

Together that array of papers will form a “Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Schools” that will encourage a more informed understanding of the issues right across the country, and provide a catalyst for effective and transforming action by the decision makers.

The first paper to be published (April 2007) explores the Training and Professional Development Needs of Teachers, Staff and Parent Representatives. Further papers will be published over the next few months.

Key recommendations of this first paper include:

• That the Australian Government fund the development of a Family-School and Community Partnership Bureau which has, as part of its mission, the provision of practical and theoretical training for teachers and parents about the key issues of Family-School Partnerships and other fundamental learning issues connected with parents and schools.
• That the design, delivery and management of the Family-School and Community Partnership Bureau and its offerings be substantially the province of parent organizations but be designed and implemented in association with principals, unions and state, territory and national governments.
• The Australian Government, in association with state and territory governments, relevant universities and institutions such as Teaching Australia fund ACSSO to work with the principals’ associations to design, manage and deliver a professional development course on parent-school partnerships for inclusion in all teaching professional development courses.
• That the Family-School Partnership courses so developed be forwarded to the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), for adoption as the standard for all state and territory jurisdictions.
• That ACSSO and its affiliates be funded to prepare a guide to training and mentoring and membership development for its current and future members. This and Family-School Partnership advice and services be provided through the Family-School and Community Partnership Bureau to be seed funded by the Federal Government.
• That teacher training be designated by MCEETYA as one of the key priorities in the next quadrennial funding round. The purpose of the exercise is to ensure that teachers are prepared for the challenges that are facing them in the 21st century.
• ACSSO supports the recommendations of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training which proposed that first year teachers have an induction period of twelve months with reduced teaching loads and similar arrangements being applied to the mentoring teachers in charge. ACSSO recommends that the twelve month arrangement should be extended where possible.
• ACSSO further recommends that mentoring other teachers be one of the criteria for extra payments and lightened teaching loads under a merit based teacher’s incentive system.
• In the first few years of a beginning teacher’s career, there should be relevant but stimulating professional development delivered face to face with other colleagues and online. It should take into account those areas which would be practically useful for a classroom teacher but provide also a theoretical framework e.g. how classroom teachers can use homework, sport and other extra class processes to build family-school partnerships
• Noting that teaching is a team activity, ACSSO recommends that the following be the key criteria not only for merit based incentives but some of the key content in pre and post service training. Some of these criteria should also apply to the selection and assessment of public school principals. Those criteria are:
  • capacity and performance in promoting the value of public schools and their own schools
  • the promoting of family-school partnerships and bringing the school closer to the community
  • undertaking further professional development or providing mentoring and/or training to other teachers
  • developing and providing whole-school or across the curriculum programmes such as literacy, numeracy and wellbeing programmes
  • electing to work with disadvantaged students and in remote areas
  • contributing significantly to the improvement of their own school communities through such programmes as curriculum design and implementation or special learning programmes
  • teaching their students in an exemplary manner
  • sharing innovative classroom practice with other teachers
  • supervision of student teachers as required
  • helping to resolve complex teaching matters (8)

The full text of this first paper of the Blueprint series, can be accessed at:

www.acsso.org.au/natconf/blueprint070424.pdf