Evidence suggests more Commonwealth money alone won’t improve outcomes for Australia’s schoolchildren, and federal investment is not the portion that has been in decline.
By Kevin Donnelly
State, territory and Commonwealth education ministers have started the process of designing a new funding model that will apply to government and non-government schools across Australia beginning in 2018.
What is the best way to fund schools and how much should governments contribute? The answers are vital, as investment in school education amounts to $50.4 billion, based on 2013–14 figures, and education is central to the nation’s future.
The Australian Education Union and non-government school critics say the answer is simple. They argue that additional billions must be invested and that the Commonwealth government must pay the lion’s share. But investing more is not the solution.
A recent Productivity Commission draft report ‘National Education Evidence Base’ argues that, despite record levels of funding, “national and international assessments of student achievement in Australia show little improvement and, in some areas, standards of achievement have dropped”.
Despite a 37 per cent increase in school funding from 2002–03 to 2012–13, the Reform of Federation White Paper 4 reaches a similar conclusion when noting that results for Australian students have either flatlined or gone backwards in international tests.
Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development analysing the characteristics of stronger performing education systems also suggests increased investment is not the solution.
The OECD’s PISA in Focus No 44 concludes “the amount of resources spent on education – including financial, human and material resources – is only weakly related to student performance”.
Instead of investing more in education, as the Australian Education Union argues, the most effective way to raise standards is to identify why stronger performing education systems do as well as they do.
This is especially important given the evidence for advanced economies like Australia that once a certain level of spending is reached, more investment is ineffective.
Far more important than spending more is ensuring that the school curriculum is academically rigorous and that the focus is on essential knowledge, understanding and skills.
It’s no secret that state and territory curriculums, especially at the primary school level, are superficial and overcrowded, with the emphasis on politically correct issues such as Indigenous studies, the environment and Asia.
Having well-resourced and enthusiastic teachers well versed in their subject and capable of engaging and motivating students is also critical. Now, such is not the case. There are too many beginning teachers, with short-term contracts, being micromanaged, and overwhelmed by red tape, causing them to leave the profession.
Research proves that what happens in the classroom is one of the most important factors influencing educational outcomes. And the bad news is that Australian classrooms, compared with those in other OECD education systems, have some of the highest rates of disruption and badly behaved students.
Australian students are also not as resilient as those in places like Finland, Singapore and Hong Kong. Unlike Australian classrooms, where the focus is on self-esteem and making sure nobody fails, stronger performing systems celebrate competition and meritocracy.
These systems also rely more on traditional approaches to teaching and learning, as measured by international literacy and numeracy tests. There is a greater emphasis on rote learning and memorisation and teacher-directed lessons.
This is unlike Australia, where teachers are described as ‘facilitators’ and ‘guides by the side’. It’s also true that stronger performing education systems rely less on technology than Australian schools, which have one of the highest rates of computer and internet use.
Clearly, a far more cost-effective way to raise standards and improve results is to ensure that our curriculum and what happens in the classroom are based on what is proven to work and what the research suggests is best practice.
While state and territory education ministers complain that the Commonwealth is underfunding education, the reality is that the Commonwealth has increased funding while a number of states and territories have cut back.
From 2009–10 to 2013–14, while the Commonwealth Government increased its funding to schools from 3.4 to 3.6 per cent of government revenue. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory reduced theirs from 13.8 of revenue to 13.6 per cent. That represented a $1.8 billion decline in expenditure on schooling by the Commonwealth over those years, and a $200 million decrease by the states and territories during that same time.
And the states and territories that did the most ‘cost shifting’ from 2009–10 to 2013–14 all delivered the biggest budget surpluses.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University and co-chaired the review of the Australian National Curriculum.