Introduction
Equity is the stated goal of almost all education systems in the world. Equity in education refers to the extent to which all learning-age children receive equal opportunities for learning. Note that equity is not the same as equality, because equity does not mean all students achieve equal education outcome, but that the differences in the outcome are not related to the students’ and their families’ disability, socio-economic status, language background, and school choice, all of which students have no control.
So what does ‘equal opportunities’ entail? There are two parts to it. One is that education is financially and physically accessible to all school-age children, another is that the education they receive is of the highest standard. Education should be treated as a basic human right and provided to all individuals. At the same time, the quality of education must be high enough such that it propels the development and prosperity of the society.
Achieving high equity in education provides enormous benefits to countries. For any individual, a decent education often leads to better employment prospect and a healthier lifestyle. Multiply this by the number of residents in a country, and it is not difficult to see it will in turn lead to greater contribution to public budget in the form of taxation and will relieve the burden on public benefit and aid. As individual productivity increases, people’s ability to support the economy increases. And as they become more skilled, people are more equipped to adapt to changes and respond to potential crises. Furthermore, as more educated people make more informed decisions about their public servants, education becomes the driver for democracy and a stable society. The return on investment is too substantial to ignore.
Equity is often used to measure the success of an education system. How does Australia fare?
The Problems in Australia
Australia does not perform particularly well in educational equity on the global stage, to say it moderately. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, a club of mostly wealthy nations), Australia’s socio-economically disadvantaged students’ well-being, specifically their sense of belonging at school, has declined from 84% of them feeling that they belong at school in 2003, to 65% in 2015 (OECD, 2018, p.71). Moreover, the difference between the percentage of socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students who feel they belong at school has grown, from 5.8% in 2003, to 12.1% in 2012, to 13.2% in 2015 (OECD, 2018, p.71). This shows an ever larger divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students’ well-being, with disadvantaged students being on the less favourable side.
Perhaps a less expected problem in Australia is school segregation and stratification. In one of the most multi-cultural nations in the world, one might expect students in any particular school to be socially-mixed too. Not so fast. 51.2% of disadvantaged students in Australia are in disadvantaged schools in 2015. This is the fourth worst among OECD countries, with 51.2% being twice as what would be expected if social privileges were distributed evenly among schools (OECD, 2018, p.122). Furthermore, among Australian disadvantaged students, those who attended advantaged schools in 2015 scored, on average, 86 points higher in science than disadvantaged students who attended disadvantaged schools (OECD, 2018, p.27). Here, the score is referring to OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and the gap of 86 points is equivalent to roughly three years of full-time study (OECD, 2018, p.13). This is a staggering result and should sound alarm for all Australians.
A contentious topic that raised a lot of heat among Australians in late 2018 is public funding for schools, in particular federal government funding. In 2016, more than 2100 private schools (out of a total 2780 private schools (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018)) received more funding per student from the federal government than their respectively similar public schools, up from fewer than 1500 in 2009 (Ting, 2018). In fact, federal funding for private schools per student is 310.4% of federal funding given to public schools in 2016 (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2016). This happens while parents are paying private schools 1752.4% of parental fees paid to public schools per student, in 2016 (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2016). It therefore becomes inevitable that private schools have more money to educate students: private schools’ total gross income per student is 31.4% higher than that of public schools in 2016 (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2016) (state and territory governments supply the majority of public schools’ funding). This equates to an uneven playing field for private and public schools, as they do not have the same resources to begin with. This lack of fairness is not natural but artificial, and it ought to be averted.
The author went to both a public school and an independent school (one of two types of private school, the other being catholic school) himself, which are a 15-minute drive apart. Taking them as examples, in 2016, on average, the public school received AUD$1,988 per student from the federal government and $668 per student from parents; the independent school received $4,362 per student from the federal government and $26,062 per student from parents (My School). So an independent school who is already charging parents $26,062 per student is also getting $4,362 per student from the public budget, when a public school, while costing parents only $668 per student, is only receiving $1,988 per student from the public budget. This contrast in funding is made extra distinct with the fact that both schools serve a similar demographic (students with similar backgrounds) as they are physically close to each other. This type of public fund distribution only serves to fuel inequity and exacerbate social injustice.
Education is a very broad subject. With common stages such as early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary, and life-long learning, it is important to understand and identify the life stages where inequity starts to manifest and develop, so that we can make targeted and preventative response before inequity starts. In Australia, inequity is small during childhood (10 years old), but it increases significantly during adolescence (15 years old) and early adulthood (25 to 29 years old) (OECD, 2018, p.67). As a result, this article will mainly focus on primary and secondary education. This is not to say early childcare and tertiary education do not have their own problems, but this article will endeavour to tackle the problems that are likely to yield the most gains.
This article aims to explain the causes of concerns before outlining the solutions. Solutions will concentrate on two actors: schools and federal government. Practices that schools can (and should) adopt are sketched out and policies that the federal government should legislate are illustrated. Parents can do a lot to contribute, but this deserves an article on its own. State and territory governments are not considered here as education is of national imperative, and the federal government has the power to spread equity on a much larger scale.
School Practices to Boost Student Well-being and Engagement
Primary and secondary schools have significant influence over a child’s development, both intellectually and emotionally. Their method of teaching delivery carries immense significance as it can shape students’ attitude towards learning, whose impact deepens as pupils venture into the world on their own. OECD provides a few practical techniques to engage students and support their welfare. Schools should provide teachers with skills training to identify students’ learning difficulties, then address those by developing customised teaching methods. For students that are falling behind considerably, teachers may consider spending some one-on-one time with the students after class to provide extra guidance. If socio-economically disadvantaged families cannot afford after-school extra-curricular activities such as sports, music, language, and the arts, then school-endorsed student-organised clubs can be an affordable alternative.
Bringing across real-world application and relevance of the skills and knowledge students are learning can reinforce motivation. This should be coupled with career counselling to help students think strategically about goals and aspirations, and find pathways to accomplish them. Students need to appreciate that intellectual abilities are qualities that can be cultivated, and the importance of persistence, effort, and learning strategies should be emphasised. As such, schools should focus more on progress, rather than on ability.
Teachers have the responsibility to foster student self-esteem and positive attitudes. Students might be asked to identify similarities among one another, to consider reasons that some students might feel they do not belong in the school, to reflect on a time when they feel left out or isolated, and how these feelings change over time. Exercises that affirm students’ values can be performed such as asking students to write down their values or principles and explain why these values are important to them.
A team culture should be established in schools such that students feel they are a team with teachers, collaborating to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Students should be encouraged to work with teachers, by teachers understanding student perceptions and establishing favourable relationships. Students should be actively invited to voice opinions and to take up leadership roles in student organisations. Schools should allow a more student-led approach to learning and decision-making.
Teacher Quality
The author went to a public school which ranked in the top 100 of all schools in the state of Victoria (there are 2500 schools in Victoria) in terms of tertiary education admission score, and an independent school which ranked in the top 30. In both schools, the author found a dissatisfaction in the quality of teachers. He too often found himself having to correct teachers’ mistakes in class, and to rely on himself to search for answers when teachers could not answer his questions (his Information Technology teacher in the private school actually failed an IT subject in university). Two issues were observed: that the teachers did not know enough about the subject matters they were teaching, and that they were not able to effectively convey what little they knew. To be sure, the author did meet a few exceptional teachers, but they were, exceptions.
It is very difficult to gather data on teacher efficacy since there is no apparent way to measure and quantify this and any researcher would be extremely fortunate to get cooperation from teachers. But having spoken to a few tutors who were retired teachers from other schools and to friends about their experience, the author sees a worrying situation (however small the sample size).
It is however, not that difficult to see what is causing this problem. When the author was about to graduate from university, he applied for one of the largest graduate programs in Australia which recruited students from non-education backgrounds and sent them to remote schools to teach. There was no requirement for university academic results. There was no requirement for high school academic results. The only criterion was ‘leadership’, and people with an average university mark as low as 60 (out of a maximum of 100, which translates to a Credit grade) were accepted. As another example, the Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Education double degree in one of the universities that the author attended, has a minimum entry score of 85 (the theoretical maximum is 99.95) for domestic year 12 students. This is very low considering that the graduates from this double degree may very well have the job of helping their students achieve an entry score of 99.95, but they could not even get close to that mark themselves! To become qualified as a secondary school teacher in Australia, one needs an approved degree in teaching, to have studied the subjects to be taught by the teacher candidate at least at undergraduate level, and to pass the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (not many people fail this test). It is simply too easy to become a teacher in Australia.
After analysing the source of the problem, one is now ready to solve it. When awarding teaching licence, the authority needs to clearly specify the subjects and year levels that a teacher is allowed to teach, and must write into law that teachers are not allowed to teach anything for which they are not licenced. This is necessary because schools often ask teachers to teach subjects for which they were not hired in the first place due to staff shortages (the author’s IT teacher mentioned earlier was actually a Maths teacher), and this amplifies the problem when teachers are not even knowledgeable in the subjects they are supposed to teach. Teachers should then be made to sit exams that their students are sitting, to ensure they themselves have the competency to attain a near-perfect score. The score should be a condition for acquiring and renewing their licence, and should be published for parents and students to see.
Having ensured teachers know the content they are teaching, it is time to ensure they can effectively transfer their knowledge to students. As another condition for renewing licence, teachers should be made to attend refresher course on subject content delivery, to learn things such as utilising role play to help conceptualise an idea. This will cost money to the government, but the return on investment is consistent first-class teachers across the nation.
Australian government ought to make the results of their policies transparent. The government should set progressive benchmarks to assess the progress and effects of policies, thus providing them with an opportunity to correct mistakes and implement improvements. There could be a national benchmark such as 20% of disadvantaged students scoring in the top quarter of high school academic results (Australia is currently at 12.7% (OECD, 2018, p.27)). An international benchmark is also crucial to ensure Australia’s education system is up to the world standard. Reaching 75% of disadvantaged students scoring proficiency level 3 or above in PISA science, reading, and mathematics would be a reasonable benchmark (Australia is currently at 28.7% (OECD, 2018, p.27)). Note that these are not mere numbers for comparison purposes only; they are evidence upon which every Australian should act to strengthen the backbone of the country.
School Segregation
The reason Australian schools are segregated, with socio-economically disadvantaged students being more likely in disadvantaged schools, is plain and obvious: school zones. The current rule is that if a parent wants to send their child to a public school, or if they are forced to do so because they are unable to afford private education, then they have the choice of one and only public school in the school zone in which they reside. Every public school has its designated school zone, school zones do not overlap, and every residential home belongs to one and only one school zone. In other words, where the child lives determines what public school they can attend, and there is only one option. This means, if a school zone happens to have a lot of disadvantaged children living in it, and the public school in the school zone happens to be disadvantaged too (due to the unfairness in government’s calculation for funding), then these disadvantaged students are bound to study in a disadvantaged school. A vicious cycle is born: school segregation results in education inequity, which results in social immobility, which results in education immobility, which feeds back into school segregation, the cycle repeats, and the repercussion deepens.
The solution is a complete overhaul to the public school selection and admission method. Simply get rid of school zones, and allow everyone to apply for any public school of their liking, regardless of where they live. If a school is oversubscribed, then a lottery system is in place to decide randomly who gets admitted and who misses out. Most importantly, the lottery system is the only ‘criterion’ to decide who gets in, and no admission test should be permitted. This solution provides parents with powerful freedom and choices to find the most suitable education for their children, and presents incentives for public schools to strive for excellence and for the government to provide support to the schools who need it most (as disadvantaged schools will face a decline in student number and risk closure). But most crucially, this means parents no longer need to face the dilemma of either sending children to a school that does not fit or having to pay for the high cost of moving home.
The author acknowledges that this is not a perfect solution, because privileged independent schools will continue to charge excessive tuition fees, thus segregating wealthy children into independent schools. But the government could start with the public school system which in itself will tremendously mitigate the social injustice.
Public Funding
To understand the reasons behind schools’ funding problem, one needs to understand how the system currently works and the history of how we arrived here.
At the time of this writing (the year 2019), the Australian federal government employs a formula to determine how much public funding a school (whether private or public) receives. The essence of the formula is suburb: the suburb of the school determines the socio-economic status of its students, thus determining how much funding a school needs, and the socio-economic data comes from national census. In theory, this is a needs-based system where the schools with more disadvantaged students receive more funding, and vice versa. But surely parents able to pay $26,026 per student to an independent school are more socio-economically advantaged than parents who pay $668 to a public school (some of the author’s classmates in the public school came to Australia as refugees and were very financially constrained), so why is the independent school getting more federal funding per student? Why does the reality not match with the theory?
The real question is, why do private schools get public funding at all? In countries like the United States, private schools get almost no public money. In Canada and New Zealand, the proportion of public money that goes to private schools is much less than that of Australia. The answer lies in history.
The post-war baby boom put huge strain on all schools in Australia. The federal government thought the private school sector would collapse if the trend continued without intervention, and that would in turn put enormous pressure on the public school system as students would flow to public schools. In an effort to avoid this turmoil, the government injected public money into private schools, both catholic and independent. That decision would prove to have tremendous repercussions for future generations, even to this day.
So why has funding for private schools grown to such disproportion when compared to funding for public school, despite the needs-based model? There are essentially two reasons: political lobbying and the mechanism with which funds are distributed. Successive governments have made special deals with the private school sector, the result of which is that no school would be worse off because of any funding models. However, private schools actually got more than ‘no worse off’ since their funding kept increasing through a process called indexation. This is a failure of politicians to do the right thing in face of political risk.
What is more bizarre is that, schools do not actually get what the federal government has calculated for and allocated to them. The federal government uses their formula to calculate what each school should get, give the money to middlemen such as state and territory governments and organisations like Catholic Schools NSW, then these middlemen use their own formulae and make their own decisions about how much each school gets. Schools do not get money directly from the federal government, and the government’s calculations are lost in the process. This makes the funding model extremely and unnecessarily complex and opaque as there are now tens of formulae and more parties’ interests are involved. It is practically impossible for Australians to understand how school funds are decided. The federal government says they do this because the middlemen know more about how schools operate and their associated needs. The question is, given the importance of education, why does the government not spend the effort to understand schools themselves?
The federal government also maintains that the reason they contribute so little to public schools’ funding is that the majority funder is state and territory governments, and the reason they give relatively more to private schools is that state and territory governments are minority funders for private schools. This argument is so broken that one can use it against itself: the federal government ought NOT to pour so much public money into private schools because relatively well-off parents are choosing to give their own money (and a lot of it) to private schools. In other words, parents are the majority funder for private schools.
A new funding model that will come into effect from 2020 has been proposed by the federal government. The only major change is that instead of basing the calculation on suburb, parents’ personal income tax data is used. This is a move in the right direction as data is analysed on a more micro level, thus giving a more accurate picture of the wealth of parents at any school. Nonetheless, this is nowhere close to solving the root causes of the problem, and the government needs to go a lot further to bring equity to Australian education.
What is required, is a sweeping reform to the federal funding model. Firstly, there should be two formulae for calculating funding: one for public school, one for private school. The public school formula would work similarly to the existing formula: a base rate (fund per student) that applies to all public schools, then add on premium for disadvantaged families, the size of which depends on parental income. The formula for private school would be, however, a little different. The private school formula should be set up such that a student would get less than what they would have got had they chosen to attend public school. This is justified on the premise that the cost of educating a child is assumed to be the same regardless of their choice of school, and if the parents are voluntarily opting to contribute financially (sometimes substantially), then there should be less burden on the government.
Thorough and rigorous research needs to be conducted to determine the exact formulae. For instance, the government needs to look at the income level of parents who are able and willing to pay upwards of $30,000 per year per child, and adjust the formula such that they get minimal (close to zero) fund if they choose private school. The funds reduced for private schools can then be re-channelled to public schools to bring the balance level.
Secondly, the federal government should pay funds to public schools directly. When a parent enrols their child into a public school, they should supply their tax file number to the school along with other identification documentations, the school would then submit these documents to the federal government. The government checks the tax file number against the identity documents, applies the parental income to the funding formula, repeats for every student, then transfers a lump sum to the public school directly.
Thirdly, regarding funds for private schools, the money should be paid directly to parents as a form of public benefit or subsidy (some might like to call this aid, but not many of this group of parents need ‘aid’). When a parent enrols their child into a private school, they should obtain a proof of enrolment from the school, supply it to Centrelink (the government organisation in Australia which handles all public benefits), and apply for the educational subsidy. No private school gets direct funding from the federal government.
The second and third points mentioned above solve three problems at once. First and foremost is that special deals with the private school sector can be eliminated. This is possible since the funding becomes a benefit to parents, not to schools; the conversation goes from ‘money is given to schools’ to ‘money is given to parents’. If the private school sector raises complaint, they do not hold any ground because they have no say in how much the Australian government gives to individual resident. Furthermore, the middlemen are eliminated. Public schools receive funds directly from the federal government, so do private school parents. Last but not least, under the latest proposed model, the federal government plans to associate parents’ addresses provided by schools with data from the Australian Taxation Office. This may prove to be a difficulty as it requires high degree of data quality and consistency or a parent may move home but forget to update one of the addresses. This problem is no longer with the way funds are decided and distributed suggested above.
Finally, the government should mandate that all schools publish details of their expenditure or where they are spending their income. All parents have the right to know where their money is going, whether they are paying directly (private education) or through tax (public education), and this may become a vital decision-making factor for them. The government also has the ability to supervise and monitor that schools are turning public funding into higher quality teaching and learning, and that they are not converting public money straight to profit.
Conclusion
Education is Australia’s third biggest export industry behind natural minerals and agricultural products (Munro, 2018), with 542,054 international students enrolled in Australian universities and schools in 2018 (Robinson, 2018). Despite this attractiveness to the rest of the world, the Australian education system faces many challenges. Equity in education has been worsening over the years, and time to take action is now. Focusing on school practices, teacher quality, school selection, and public funding is just the beginning. The road is long, but the reward will underpin Australia’s prosperity for generations to come.
Reference
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2018). Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility. Retrieved from https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2018/10/apo-nid201966-1220141.pdf
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Table 35b Counts of All Schools, 2010-2017. Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4221.02017?OpenDocument
Ting, I., Liu, R., Scoot, N. (2018, November 26). Counting the cost of the education revolution. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-22/counting-the-cost-of-the-education-revolution/10495756.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2016). School income and capital expenditure by school sector, time series. Retrieved from https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-portal/school-funding/school-income-and-capital-expenditure-for-government-and-non-government-schools-(calendar-year)#View3
My School (2019, January). Retrieved from https://www.myschool.edu.au/
Munro, K. (2018, June 1). Australia’s trade explained: Top imports, exports and trading partners. SBS, Retrieved from https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-s-trade-explained-top-imports-exports-and-trading-partners.
Robinson, N. (2018, April 18). Australia hosting unprecedented numbers of international students. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-18/australia-hosting-unprecedented-numbers-international-students/9669030.
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