THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT influencing teaching quality in Australia over the past decade has, without question, been the establishment of nationally agreed policies for education. The wide-ranging policies, influencing what is taught, how it is taught, and who teaches it, have occurred under the auspices of two national organizations: ACARA (the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority), and AITSL (the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership).
In the first chapter of this volume, we look at each organization, their policies, and how they are intended to frame improvements in the quality of education in Australia. We also look at the issue of educational fundingāa third plank of national reforms. In particular, we survey the Gonski reforms, which aims to equalize funding across states and school systems, and which is influencing statesā approach to the more equitable resourcing of education.
Preceding this, we discuss the context for education in Australia, including its school system in international comparison. We also highlight some of the challenges, in particular those related to achieving an equitable education for all students.
We begin however by briefly looking firstly at the governmental arrangements for education, and then the Melbourne Declarationāthe statement that sets the long-term vision of a high-quality and equitable education for young Australians, and which has provided the impetus for powerful national reforms in a federal education system.
Australia, Its Constitution, and Federalism in Education
Education policy in Australia is formally the responsibility of the governments of each of its six states and two territories. Originally a series of independent colonies, the states federated to became the country of Australia with the establishment of a federal constitution in 1901. The states and territories retain constitutional independence from the parliament of the federal government over many important policy functions, including responsibility for education.1 Thus each state in Australia operates its own set of government schools, and trains and registers its own teachers.
Federal influence over state policy is however permitted under the federal constitutionās Section 96:
This allows the federal government to provide funding to states, and tie it to specific initiatives, including in education. Successive federal governments have made use of this provision for the past 40 years, such as the assumption of responsibility for the funding of Australian universities in the 1970s. Its use as a legislative tool in school education has also grown, particularly over the past decade. This effectively means that where federal funds are provided, federal policy applies.
The increasing influence of this provision is facilitated by the nature of taxation and funding in Australia. Income and general taxes (such as GSTāa value-added tax on goods and services) are collected by the federal government and subsequently dispersed to state governments in order to fund their agendas. Funding may also be directed towards school systems and specific activities. Policy matters in states and territories are thus both directly and indirectly funded by the Australian government.
Despite constitutional independence, this imbalance in funding power (known as a vertical fiscal imbalance) discourages states from declining federal funds, particularly in expensive policy areas such as education, and gives the federal government an influential voice in policy. Agreement between state and federal governments has predominated in education policy in recent years, but at times during 2003ā2007, the Australian government used the specter of a reduction of funding to move states towards national policies, a period described as ācoercive federalismā (Harris-Hart, 2010; Reid, 2009).
Although center-right governments have in general tended to favor a states-based approach to education policy, attempts to create national policy in areas such as curriculum over the last 40 years have been led by both Liberal (center-right) and Labor (center-left) parties. The discourses and stated rationales for national-level policies in education have thus shifted over time. These have included equity issues, national identity and cohesion, the inefficiencies of misalignment between states (the so-called railway gauge phenomenon),2 and human capital and economic growth imperatives (Gable & Lingard, 2013; Harris-Hart, 2010).
More recently, flagging international education competitiveness and the risk of ālosing the education raceā has been articulated as a primary driver (Franklin, 2012; Reid, 2009). Gable and Lingard (2013) have contended that Australiaās increased participation in international organizations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have led it to increasingly accept a knowledge economy and productivity growth rationale, and thus to focus on education governance centered on addressing systemic issues through national level policies, rather than local issues of instruction and learning.
The most significant developments in federal education policy occurred following the election of a center-left Labor party to the federal government in 2007. The Rudd-Gillard government sought to enact its reform agenda in three key areas:
- āRaising the quality of teaching in our schools.
- Ensuring all students benefit from schooling through strategies based on high expectations of attainment, engagement and transitions for every student, especially in disadvantaged school communities.
- Improving transparency and accountability of schools and school systems at all levels.ā (Rudd & Gillard, 2008)
The success in achieving national-level policies has largely been achieved through a āco-operative federalismā (Harris-Hart, 2010). With the signing of the Melbourne Declaration in 2008 (described below), the Australian government pursued national policies largely through a series of National Partnerships agreements between federal and state governments in areas including numeracy and literacy, and teaching quality. This took place through two main organizations, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) (representing both Commonwealth and state governments) and its related body, the Education Council.3 The process has relied on consensus, and although now well-entrenched, with subsequent changes of leadership at state and federal levels, its success is still potentially subject to political forces. The challenges in implementing national funding reforms (discussed later in this paper) provide one such example.
The Australian government has established several national level bodiesāmost prominently the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) ...
