In the upcoming 2024 race, former President Donald Trump seems to be taking a page out of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ book by prioritizing education policies. In recent years, DeSantis has made education reform a top priority in Florida, implementing measures such as expanding school choice options and increasing teacher salaries. Now, Trump appears to be looking to catch up in this area, with education being a central theme in his recent speeches and interviews.
One of Trump’s primary goals for education reform is to increase school choice options for American families. He believes that parents should have the power to decide which schools their children attend, regardless of their zip code or income level. This includes expanding charter schools, school voucher programs, and homeschooling options. Trump argues that competition among schools will lead to improved academic outcomes for all students, as schools will have to work harder to attract and retain students.
Another key area of focus for Trump is promoting vocational education and job skills training. He believes that not all students will want to pursue a traditional college education and that there should be more emphasis on providing students with the skills needed to succeed in trades and technical fields. Trump has proposed expanding apprenticeship programs and partnerships between schools and businesses to provide students with real-world work experience.
In addition to expanding school choice and vocational education, Trump has also expressed support for increasing teacher pay and reducing bureaucratic red tape in education. He has criticized the Common Core standards and federal overreach in education, arguing that states and local communities should have more control over their own education systems.
While education has traditionally not been a top priority for Republican presidential candidates, this could be changing. With DeSantis’ success in implementing education reforms in Florida and Trump’s increasing focus on the issue, education could become a key issue in the 2024 race. As the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of education and the challenges facing American schools, it is likely that voters will be paying closer attention to education policy in the coming years.
Overall, Trump seems to be looking to catch up to DeSantis and establish himself as a leader in education policy in the Republican party. Whether or not this focus on education will resonate with voters remains to be seen, but it is clear that education will be an important issue to watch in the 2024 race.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the controversial “Parental Rights in Education” bill Monday, barring public school teachers in the state from having classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity.
Key Takeaways:
The Florida Senate on Tuesday passed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, dubbed by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, sending it to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk. DeSantis, who has previously supported the measure. In March, the Governor signed it into legislation.
The measure would prevent “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.” The bill does not define “age appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” However, Florida Rep. Joe Harding, co-sponsor of the bill, said it would apply to students in grades K-3.
The bill sets a deadline of June 30, 2023, for the state to develop updated standards to decide what “age-appropriate” instruction looks like.
It requires schools to notify parents of any healthcare services being offered to children and give them the opportunity for families to opt out of them.
It also requires schools to get the permission of a parent before administering any “well-being questionnaire or health screening” to a child in kindergarten through third grade.
In addition, it allows parents to sue in court if they believe a school violates the new law or request the Commissioner of Education to appoint a “special magistrate” to get to the bottom of a complaint. (School districts would pay for the magistrate.)
The news was met with immediate pushback from civil rights organizations and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who said in a statement that Florida leaders “are prioritizing hateful bills that hurt some of the students most in need.”
It seems that every year around this time, school districts around the country report not being able to fill all of their open teacher vacancies. Why do these cyclical teacher shortages occur? In this episode of the podcast, we will explore this topic in-depth.
Salman Rushdie recently caused controversy by bemoaning the lack of “rote learning” in schools. He spoke about the benefits of learning poetry by heart – a method many see as archaic and outdated in today’s classroom.
Despite the criticisms of Rushdie’s comments, the debate around the effectiveness of different learning strategies in modern education is as active as ever – with many recognising that each pupil prefers a different learning style and technique.
This can of course make it hard for teachers to gear classes up for each individual’s preferred style of learning. Especially given that one style, such as social learning, can appear to be the exact opposite of another style, such as those who prefer a more solitary style of education.
Research shows that when it comes to learning strategy preferences or even A-level choice, they are pretty hard wired in each individual – with genes playing a large part in the process. And we know that genes can also shape our relationships with other people – whether they be parents, teachers or peers.
Why genes matter
“Educational genomics” is a relatively new field, which has been expanding rapidly in the recent years because of advances in technology. It involves using detailed information about the human genome – DNA variants – to identify their contribution to particular traits that are related to education.
And it is thought that one day, educational genomics could enable educational organisations to create tailor-made curriculum programmes based on a pupil’s DNA profile.
A number of recent large-scale genetic studies on education-related traits – such as memory, reaction time, learning ability and academic achievement – have identified genetic variants that contribute to these traits. And studies using even more advanced technologies are also currently underway, promising to add to our growing knowledge of what helps us to learn.
This information could then be used to find out what DNA variants contribute to reading and mathematical ability, or school achievement. And then used to predict whether or not a pupil is likely to be gifted in a particular field such as music or mathematics, for example. These “traits” could then be nurtured in the classroom.
A personalised approach
But despite all the existing evidence for individual differences in learning, genetics is rarely a consideration when it comes to education. Though, recent years have seen a rise in funding and research into personalised medicine. This involves “mapping” genetic differences among people to predict and target potential health issues in later life, which has allowed doctors to adjust treatment and prevention approaches to try and stave off risks before they even begin to develop.
So it wouldn’t be a great leap to use these same databases – and research funding – to advance the field of educational genomics. Meaning that every child in the future could be given the opportunity to achieve their maximum potential.
It is well-known that hundreds or even thousands DNA variants are involved in complex human traits. Shutterstock
But it is also important to bear in mind that our genes do not work in isolation. The human genome is a dynamic system that reacts to the environment. And the role of the environment in education is just as important to the development of a child.
For example, musical talent can be inherited, but can only be developed as a skill in the presence of specific environmental conditions – such as the availability of musical instrument and hard practice.
And educational genomics aims to uncover this complex relationship – to look at how the genome works in different environments. This information will then help researchers to understand how this interplay affects brain and behaviour across the life of a person.
By considering DNA differences among people in the future, educational genomics could provide the basis for a more personalised approach to education. This would most likely be a much more effective way of educating pupils because educational genomics could enable schools to accommodate a variety of different learning styles – both well-worn and modern – suited to the individual needs of the learner.
And in time, this could help society to take a decisive step towards the creation of an education system that plays on the advantages of genetic background. Rather than the current system, that penalises those individuals who do not fit the educational mould.
As a young mom I was not familiar with the concept of “show and tell”. My eldest son was 4 years old at the time and he had to take a toy to school and show it to the class, tell them a little bit about it and answer the eager audience’s questions. I thought this is such a great idea to introduce children to the world of public speaking and presentations! After all, public speaking is not necessarily a talent, but a skill, and the younger a child is when they begin to learn this skill, the better.
Apart from being mom, I am also a sixth form teacher and am too well-aware that some students genuinely struggle when asked to present information to a group. I can see that this may be a problem when students go on to tertiary education and also later in life. For personal and professional success, effective presentation skills delivered in a confident manner are vital.
That is why presentation skills need to be nurtured from a young age, before the student really has an awareness of being in the spotlight and possibly being faced with stage fright. Public speaking and presentation skills could be fostered, to such an extent that it becomes a natural skill. “Show and tell” helps a child to prepare a talk about an abstract object rather than a familiar one, it helps to create an awareness of vocal projection and most importantly, it helps to build confidence.
Spotlight
By the time my second son had to do “show and tell”, we had perfected the practice! We progressed from showing (and telling about) favorite toys, to eventually using PowerPoint. By now, my sons were 8 and 10 and their confidence surprised their teachers. “Show and tell” helped to build their public speaking skills and helped them to feel comfortable with talking in front of a group of peers! However, they were also confident because every time that they were expected to present information to the class, they were well prepared. Confidence and preparation are crucial aspects for effective presentation!
My 7 year old daughter has to talk about her summer holidays in class soon. I know that if she is well prepared, she will feel confident and be able to do a good presentation. She was super excited when I suggested that she make a mysimpleshow video to introduce her holiday experience. Afterwards she will also show holiday photographs and talk about each of them. I know that if the presentation goes well, she will be more confident and keen to do a presentation when she gets her next spotlight topic.
Presentations
When asked about the basics of speech making, my advice to students and parents is simple:
Prepare the speech/presentation very well – plan carefully what you’ll say and use speech cards with highlighted keywords
Practice the presentation a few times – if possible, do it in front of a test audience, like your family
Pay attention to proper posture – be mindful of weird mannerisms that may distract the audience
Make eye contact
Speak loudly and clearly
Be confident! If the audience senses that you are nervous, they will also be nervous
My advice to teachers?
If you are teaching little ones:
Keep the “show and tell” and spotlight going from a young age. It does wonders to build confidence!
If you are teaching older students:
Regularly include short student presentations in your classes to emphasize the basics of speech making
Suggest various ways to make presentations more interesting to an audience, like the use of objects or the showing of short video clips as part of the presentation.
Educators play a vital role in helping students to learn and experience public speaking. Leadership in the community, business world or any organization demands effective presentation skills. Leaders are expected to be able to make presentations without any qualms. So, let’s foster great presentation skills from a young age and right through our students’ school careers, to ensure that they acquire a skill that will be very useful to them throughout their lives.
LGW Irvine is a secondary school teacher specializing in history, performing arts and languages. With a keen interest in writing, she has published Teacher Planners and an AFL Teacher Handbook. Among her presentations include in-depth courses in study methods and essay writing, as she has a particular interest in helping others to reach their full potential in those areas. Her current projects include History Revision Guides as well as Study Methods workbooks.
Many South Africans were outraged by the recent announcement that for 2016, pupils in Grades 7 to 9 could progress to the next grade with only 20% in Mathematics.
The usual minimum has been 40%, provided that all other requirements for promotion are met. Pupils with less than 30% in Mathematics in grade 9 must take Mathematical Literacy (this involves what the Department of Basic Education calls “the use of elementary mathematical content” and is not the same as Mathematics) as a matric subject.
Public concern is understandable. South Africans should be deeply worried about the state of mathematics teaching and learning. The country was placed second from last for mathematics achievement in the latest Trends in International Maths and Science Study.
Research closer to home has shown that pupils, particularly from poorer and less well resourced schools, are under performing in mathematics relative to the curriculum outcomes. These learning deficits compound over time, which makes it increasingly difficult to address learning difficulties in mathematics in the higher grades.
All of this means that children and young people may be in Mathematics classes but are not learning. But the answer to this problem does not lie with making pupils repeat an entire grade because of poor mathematical performance. There’s extensive research evidence to suggest that grade repetition does more harm than good.
Repetition is not effective
Grade repetition is practised worldwide – despite there being very little evidence for its effectiveness. In fact, it can be argued that its consequences are mainly negative for repeating pupils. Grade repetition is a predictor of early school leaving, sometimes called “drop out”.
Pupils who repeat grades and move out of their age cohort become disaffected with school. They disengage from learning.
South Africa’s rates of grade repetition are high. Research by the Department of Basic Education shows that on average, 12% of all pupils from grades one to 12 repeat a year. The grades with the highest repetition rates are grade 9 (16.3%), grade 10 (24.2%) and grade 11 (21.0%).
And grade repetition is an equity issue. The Social Survey-CALS (2010) report found that black children are more likely to repeat grades than their white or Indian peers. This reflects the fracture lines that signal socioeconomic disadvantage in South Africa.
Repetition rates decrease as the education level of the household head increases. Poor access to infrastructural resources, like piped water and flush toilets, are associated with higher rates of grade repetition. Boys are more likely to repeat than girls. There’s also an uncertain link between pupil achievement and grade repetition, particularly for black learners in high schools.
So why does grade repetition persist?
Beliefs about the benefits of repetition
Schools and societies still believe in the value of making children repeat grades, despite evidence to the contrary.
A recent survey of 95 teachers in Johannesburg – which is currently under review for publication in a journal – showed how teachers believe the additional time spent in a repeated year allows pupils to “catch up” and be better prepared for the subsequent grade. This view is reflected in recent reportsthat teachers are against the new 20% concession which has stirred so much controversy. Their opposition is echoed by countless callers to talk shows, who all seem to assume that repeating subject content results in improved understanding.
But unless the reasons for a pupil’s misunderstanding of concepts are identified and addressed, any improvement is unlikely. Given that the deficits in mathematical understanding may stretch back to the foundation phase (Grades 1 – 3), it’s doubtful that merely repeating a grade in the senior phase is going to be sufficient for remediation.
And teachers may struggle to provide support to pupils repeating a grade. Research conducted in South Africa reveals that teachers lack confidence in their ability to teach pupils who experience learning difficulties. They would prefer to refer such pupils to learning support specialists and psychologists who are seen to have more expertise.
Many of the teachers we surveyed believe that grade repetition solves problems intrinsic to pupils. Immaturity is seen as one reason for learning difficulties and teachers expect that the repeated year compensates for this. Other teachers regard the threat of retention as a means to motivate pupils who are not sufficiently diligent or who are “slow” or “weak”. When learning difficulties are seen as being intrinsic to pupils, it is less likely that factors within the education system will be considered as the cause of barriers to learning.
Failing pupils is not the solution
Poor achievement in mathematics is not going to be solved by making pupils repeat their grade. Repetition effectively makes pupils and their families pay an additional – financial and emotional – cost for the system’s failure.
Repetition because of poor mathematics achievement during the senior phase compounds the bleak outlook for these pupils. They already have a minimal grasp of mathematics, which denies them access to Science, Technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers. Then they’re also at risk of leaving school early and joining the ranks of the unemployed.
The Department of Basic Education’s 20% concession indicates that it knows grade repetition won’t achieve much. The public outcry should not be that these learners are being given a “free pass” and don’t deserve to be promoted. Instead, civil society needs to hold the government accountable for addressing the crisis in mathematics teaching and learning across all grades – and particularly in the crucial primary school years.
Many academics, including myself, have explored why free higher education is not economically viable in South Africa.
Money is not the only issue, though. Quality also matters. And the two go hand in hand. Students have hastened to conflate free education and access to quality education. But introducing free university education will not magically grant students access to quality education, nor employment in the marketplace. There’s a lot of work to be done to achieve this. And in my view this should take precedence over doing away with university fees.
This work will not only involve universities as institutions.
The starting point must be to improve the quality of basic and secondary education. South Africa’s basic education system faces serious problems and has done so for years.
Added to this is the fact that universities have become increasingly bureaucratic as well as driven by the need to raise money from fees. This makes them ever more expensive and beyond the reach of the vast majority of South Africans. Universities must return to their core business of teaching, research and learning rather than focusing on profit margins.
And, last but not least, there needs to be a shift in students’ attitudes: they must begin to value their access to universities.
Basic education is a mess
The basic education system compares poorly with others on the continent. It fares even worse when compared globally.
The country has too few teachers; those who are in classrooms are frequently under qualified and perform badly. Teacher to pupil ratios are extremely high and many public schools – particularly those in rural areas – lack even basic infrastructure like desks and books.
Against this backdrop, the relatively small number of students who eventually manage to enter university education are naturally ill-equipped to handle the complex nature of knowledge construction at a tertiary level. They struggle with literacy and numeracy and are in no way ready to tackle university assignments.
So, fundamental change must happen in the basic education sector. It’s no use making higher education free for all if those entering the system are not able to cope with its demands.
Universities aren’t corporate houses
While it is necessary to overhaul the basic education system, South Africa needs to also transform its educational institutions and make them affordable.
This will involve not just equipping students with the skills the country needs, but also making degrees affordable. The cost of higher education in South Africa has risen phenomenally in the last two decades.
According to a 2016 survey, a standard Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Social Science costs anywhere from R14 000 to an average of around R35 000. This is far beyond the reach of most South African households. By comparison, a standard Bachelor of Arts at one of Kenya’s biggest public universities currently costs the equivalent of R14 000 for a year.
Higher education must be seen to be within the reach of poor students who aspire to it. Universities are not corporate houses that need to be obsessed by profits and income. It’s not appropriate that they focus on things like “management and efficiency techniques and professional support for accountability, measurement, ‘product control’ and assessment” instead of teaching and research.
Corporatisation of the higher education system has led South Africa down the wrong path. Too much money is spent on paying senior managers and remunerating bloated administrative units.
With the ever-growing decrease in state funding for higher education, the universities are forced to depend on student fees, donor funding and other sources. There may be some justification that universities are profit driven to pay for the increasing costs of higher educational institutions.
But all this comes at a cost to students and the academic programme. It’s time to return the academic agenda – teaching and research – to the centre of university life.
Rethinking protest
It’s also important to remember that access to education is a two sided coin. It’s not enough for universities to open their doors; the people entering must also value their access. Yes, universities have a lot of work to do to ensure they are transformed. But there must also be a change in the culture of students.
Students must realise that South Africa is no longer fighting an external enemy like the apartheid system. Instead, citizens are fighting within a system of democracy. This means that the way the country protests needs to be rethought. In the past the means for legal protest weren’t easily available. There are now appropriate structures and institutions to seek redress and put pressure through peaceful protest and through democratic negotiations. The destruction of infrastructure that’s been seen at educational institutions in recent months will only deprive the future generations of access to education.
Politicians have a major role to play in changing this culture of protest, as do parents, traditional leaders, NGOs and other religious and cultural institutions, such as churches.
Worldwide, more than 65m adolescent girls have no access to school. And it’s not just poorer countries that suffer from bad education. In the UK, one in five young people don’t complete post-16 education, making it one of the worst performing countries in league tables measuring how well young people are educated. This affects not only life chances but also health outcomes and well-being.
Studies conducted as far afield as the US, Norway and rural South Africa, for example, have suggested that encouraging school attendance can help young people avoid early sexual activity – and girls to avoid unplanned pregnancy. But this has never been confirmed by experimental evidence – until now.
A comprehensive Cochrane review of studies from around the world combined the data from more than 55,000 young people aged on average between 14 and 16. And it has shown that providing a small payment or giving away a free school uniform can incentivise the young to stay in school for longer, especially in places where there are financial barriers to attending.
Most significantly, it also reveals that the approach could prevent three in every ten pregnancies among that age group globally, and may also delay sexual activity and reduce sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in both girls and boys – although further high quality studies are needed to confirm this. Additionally, it suggests that the mainstay of the current approach – “sex education” – isn’t working to achieve these ends.
Sex education is failing
The studies in the Cochrane review were all randomised controlled trials from Europe, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Most were of high quality and had follow-ups at between 18 months and seven years.
The sex education programmes they investigated included peer and teacher-led education and the innovative uses of drama and group work. But most of the programmes did not provide access to the necessary health services, such as condoms or other contraception, especially for the youngest age groups.
What is clear is that we really don’t know what works and for whom when it comes to curriculum-based sex education in schools. We are often told that we do know, but the studies quoted previously have been based on self-reported behaviours of young people which are prone to bias.
Sex and sexuality are sensitive topics, especially when there are legal or moral ramifications for someone admitting to having sex. This new review, by contrast, has for the first time only included studies featuring measurable biological outcomes from records or tests of pregnancy and STIs. The fact that it points to sex education not working to reduce pregnancy and STIs among the young, therefore, is all the more significant. It seems we need a radical rethink.
Staying at school: a healthy contraceptive? Shutterstock
But what should be done? Most people agree that sex education should start early and focus on relationships, not just on the mechanics of sex. Most also agree that it should be inclusive and sensitive to a range of sexualities, including not assuming that all young people have started to have sex. Equally, few would disagree that we need to reform current approaches to take into account new risks from digital communications and social media, and that schools are a good place to encourage the development of healthy relationships.
However, MP Sarah Champion, whose Dare to Care national action plan calls for “compulsory resilience and relationships education” in UK schools, needs to consider this new evidence. She talks about young people needing “the tools to rebuff harmful requests and behaviour from abusers”. This focus solely on an individualised notion of resilience is flawed unless it incorporates more ecological and culturally sensitive definitions, and a clear understanding that it is not at all easy to “rebuff” violent approaches, especially in young people’s intimate relationships.
We need to build schools that are safe, welcoming and supportive – with adults, including parents, that are open and have the skills to talk to children about sexuality. We also need to think carefully about how the sexuality education offered by schools can effectively achieve its aims.
New ways of thinking about sex
Certainly, current strategies are failing. Talking about sex in schools doesn’t encourage young people to have sex, but equally – as the Cochrane review shows – it is not likely to delay them having it either, as some previous authors have suggested.
Some, for example, have claimed that programmes such as TeenStar, which encourage abstinence from sexual activity, are effective. But this conclusion is based on studies that are considered to have serious flaws.
The Cabezon study, for example, examined pregnancy outcomes from a programme in Chile that promoted abstinence from sexual activity. They suggested that the programme was successful by comparing the number of girls who were pregnant at the end of the study (19), with the number of pregnancies from a group who didn’t receive the programme (52). This made the programme look amazingly successful, but it excluded miscarriages and also illegal abortions that go unrecorded in Chile, so they were unlikely to have included all unwanted pregnancies that had occurred. The study also suffered from a number of biases including during randomisation and recruitment to the study, and selective reporting of the results.
In future, we need to rely on good quality evidence when developing public health policy. If sex education were to become compulsory, for example, it would be sensible to track its effectiveness experimentally to ensure that policies are working as expected.
While this study may highlight the failings of sex education at the moment, it also points to the effectiveness of school in general in the prevention of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. That, at least, is a good start.
For 50 years, Australia’s policymakers have been persuaded that growth at every level of the education system would be a good thing in itself – and would drive economic growth and social progress.
That faith is now under unprecedented pressure.
While massive expansion has brought the benefits of education to millions, it has also created new problems, and left old ones unresolved.
Human capital theory
Belief in the power of education to lift lives and societies is hardly new. But “human capital theory” gave it a new form.
Developed by a small group of US economists in the late 1950s, human capital theory arrived in Australia via the OECD in 1964, when L. H. Martin became the first in a long line of Australian policymakers to argue that education was not a necessary expense but an investment.
Investment in education would make individuals and economies more productive, triggering a virtuous circle of economic growth, more equal opportunity, higher levels of health and civic-mindedness, and cultural enrichment. The economic rain would follow the educational plough.
It followed (as one Australian human capital theorist argued) that,
“education spending should be expanded up to the point where the rate of return to additional spending is equal to the general rate of return on capital”.
Anything less will reduce the rate of economic growth and result in “a culturally impoverished and less cohesive society”.
In the meantime, education pays for itself (as another theorist put it) “many times over”.
Promise and performance
Governments have certainly done as advised.
In just two generations they have tripled the proportion of students completing 12 years of schooling, expanded numbers in vocational education and training (VET) from a few tens of thousands to around 1.5 million, and multiplied higher education numbers by thirteen.
But 50 years on it is clear the benefits of vastly expanded access to education are heavily offset in ways scarcely anticipated by the human capital argument:
Despite claims that education pays for itself, the chronic problem of funding it has recently become acute, pushing minister Pyne from his portfolio, and his government toward a near-death electoral experience.
Even the OECD, the leading apostle of human capital theory, concedes that “over-education” is relatively pronounced in Australia. Employment and salary returns to degree and diploma programs have fallen steadily, while at the lowest qualification levels returns are negligible or even negative. On the other side of the transaction, employers continue to complain about the employability and “job readiness” of graduates
Despite more years of schooling by many more people, a persistently large minority of students is “disengaged”, and an even larger proportion of adults lacks the skills “to meet the demands of everyday life and work”.
Research dominates the universities and they dominate the system as a whole. The universities have been allowed to pursue their own interests at the expense of teaching, and to undertake increasing amounts of educational work for which neither they nor their students are well equipped. Their dominance extends to the purposes and curriculum of schooling, and contributes to the perception of VET – under-funded and beset by scandal – as an educational last resort.
There have been few or no gains in the social distribution of opportunity in and through education. It seems likely that structural inequality – the distance between the best and worst educated, and the distribution of the population across that spectrum – has increased.
Growth has been in time served as well as numbers enrolled, causing costs for young people to rise as returns fall. They spend a steadily increasing proportion of their lives in a limbo between childhood and fully adult circumstances and responsibilities in pursuit of employment which may or may not materialise.
Growth still the solution?
There are those who argue or assume that growth should still be the first objective of policy.
The most recent substantial review of higher education, for example, relied on human capital theory to argue for a much-expanded, demand-driven system.
Deloitte Access Economics prosecutes the same case, claiming not just a long list of social, health and other benefits for expansion, but an 8.5% increase in GDP “because of the impact that a university education has had on the productivity”.
Australia’s most successful federal minister of education, John Dawkins, recently called for a comprehensive rethink, but with funding for further growth as the central question, a view apparently shared by the Grattan Institute.
The guns of policy are pointing in the wrong direction. We need a re-orientation for the next 50 years as substantial as that introduced by Martin 50 years ago.
A different orientation for public policy
The first question for policy should not be the size of the system or its funding but its disposition, character, and consequences:
Policy has concentrated on the supply of skills and knowledge; it should now concentrate on their use and development in the workplace.
The effort to load up individuals with economically useful skills and knowledge via front-end, formal education should give way to expanding career and training paths and work-based learning across the broadest possible range of industries and occupations, including most of the professions.
The focus on the social distribution of education should be widened to tackle structural inequality. Policy must be directed less toward opportunity to get the best, and more toward providing the highest possible proportion of the population with the best possible educational experience and attainment.
The priority currently given to the top half of the system and to those who do well at school and go on to higher education should be given to those for whom education is a bad experience with bad consequences.
Policy should above all stop equating human capital with the consumption of formal education. That conflation has allowed occupational groups, including particularly the professions and those aspiring to professional status, to combine with education providers to use credentials to drive up amounts of education consumed. Educational provision should be seen within the larger frame of learning and its recognition, irrespective of where, when or how undertaken, but particularly learning and its use in workplaces.
It is possible to detect the beginnings of such a re-orientation in some of the areas discussed; in others, it is not.
Learning the lessons of experience
Although human capital theory has gone largely unchallenged in policy debates, among economists it has been as much criticisedandrejected as accepted.
Even those who work within the human capital framework often distance themselves from the growth argument appealed to by governments and others.
The rise of human capital theory from one among several accounts of the education-economy relationship to conventional wisdom owes as much to its political usefulness to governments and to the education industry as to its merits.
There is much more to the complex interaction of education and learning (on the one hand) and economic activity (on the other) than human capital theory comprehends, including particularly competition for economic advantage through education by occupational groups and by families and individuals.
There is also much more to education than its contribution to economic activity.
Martin depended upon a theory. Now we have experience. If the lessons of the past 50 years are to be learned, policymakers will need a much broader course of instruction than can be provided by human capital theory.
More students than ever before have the opportunity for higher education but their choices are being undermined by a confusing admissions system in much need of reform.
This is the conclusion of a report to Education Minister Simon Birmingham, which points to “a paradoxical situation”.
“Entry into universities has become more equitable. Yet there is evidence that families with less experience of higher education, which are economically disadvantaged or live in regional Australia, are less able to understand how admissions processes operate.”
The report, “Improving the Transparency of Higher Education Admissions” is from the Higher Education Standards Panel, chaired by Peter Shergold, a one-time head of the Prime Minister’s department, and will be released by Birmingham on Wednesday.
It says the increasing diversity of admissions criteria for higher education is not well enough understood. Media focus is on the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) but in 2014 more than half the students admitted to higher education courses were admitted on other criteria. These included previous study and mature age provisions.
“Diversity is good. Varied entry standards and pathways are giving greater numbers of students the opportunity to benefit from higher education than ever before.
“More students from disadvantaged families, who in previous times would not have been able to gain entry to higher education, are now able to do so.
“However, choice is being undermined by information about the system’s operation that is confusing, ambiguous, misunderstood and unevenly distributed.”
Problems include: no common language to describe entry requirements; the ATAR calculation differing in each jurisdiction; information not being provided in a readily accessible way that facilitates comparisons; the ATAR focus leading many prospective students to assume that is the only path; and the danger that some higher education providers might make exaggerated claims about ATAR requirements, in an effort to boost their prestige.
There is consensus that the autonomy of higher education providers to set their own admission criteria should be upheld, but the panel says the emphasis should be on a student-centred approach.
The panel has produced a detailed set of recommendations to:
achieve more transparency by using common language and publishing consistent information about admissions processes;
widen the accessibility of information to prospective students;
improve the comparability of information from providers about admission processes and entry requirements;
make providers more accountable for the information they give;
ensure providers are subject to common reporting requirements, and
give students, parents, teachers and career advisers the knowledge and capacity they need to navigate admissions policies and processes.
Releasing the report at a higher education summit in Melbourne, Birmingham will support the recommendations’ intent and promise an official response within weeks. The government will get input from the sector and states and territories.
“Admission policies should not only empower students to make wise, well-informed choices but should also create levels of transparency and accountability that, coupled with optimal financial incentives, help to ensure that higher education providers make enrolment decisions that are genuinely in the best interests of students and the nation,” Birmingham will say.
“That shift towards greater transparency is why the Turnbull government has been such a strong advocate of the QILT [Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching] website – giving students better information about institutions and course quality, as well as graduate employment outcomes.”
The site has received about 490,000 visits. Enhancements to QILT would be part of the government’s response to the report and broad higher education reform, including better information for postgraduate students and greater use of universal data sources, Birmingham will say.
“We also require better understanding of whether students are moving between sectors or institutions within sectors or moving in to work or from a bachelor course of study to a diploma or advanced diploma in the same or another institution. Those students are currently being counted as non-completions.”
