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How can we improve opportunities for talented and disadvantaged kids?

By Peter West - posted Thursday, 25 June 2015


It's difficult making much sense of the bombshell launched earlier this week about funding schooling.

Various suggestions have been offered. It's just an idea being floated. It's not the Abbott Government's policy. Maybe it's the start of a complete rethinking of education funding.

And so on.

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Before the 1960s education was controlled by the State Governments. Here in NSW, kids went to schools owned and paid for by the Department of Education (earlier, called the Department of Public Instruction). Teachers were trained by the States and taught in State schools. Education was declared "free, compulsory and secular" in a landmark Education Act of 1880. Parents who didn't like this system sent their children to private schools largely set up and paid for by churches, with the aid of school fees and private donations. Catholic systemic schools were established. And for those who could afford them, there was a small group of Great Public Schools with very substantial fees. For the record, I have worked in and done research in State and many types of private schools.

What we have had since 1963 is the slow advance of the Federal Government into many aspects of education, State and private. There are many priorities for disadvantaged children, Aboriginal education and so on and these priorities change. Commonwealth funding flows in these directions and schools struggle to keep up with what's currently favoured.

The Gonski Review set up under Rudd and Gillard was an attempt to look at needs and priorities. It followed an earlier Karmel Report and Schools Commission set up in the Whitlam years. Gonski was an attempt to look at the state of education and channel funding to where it was most needed.

Where is the most need? Teachers tell me that in a disadvantaged area these patterns are common:

- kids are kept at home- to help on the farm, to help Mum shop, to look after a sick relative

- kids live in homes which are chaotic, in which the TV is constantly on and other noises blaring

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- parents smoke around kids, drink in front of them day and night and use other drugs

- books are uncommon

- there is no space where the kid can keep books or do homework regularly

- fathers fly in, fly out of mining areas and appear at home at irregular times, overtired and irritable

- both parents struggle to raise the kids, get them off to school each morning properly breakfasted and with an adequate healthy lunch

- there are many single –parent families, usually mother-headed

This could be in many areas of west and southwest Sydney; the north of Melbourne; the far northern suburbs of Brisbane; or any number of country towns. Or almost anywhere in Australia.

Yet among these kids there is talent. It could be in music (I know teachers getting excellent results from getting kids to sing and play instruments from the age of four and five up). Art has the ability to get kids to express themselves and create a magical world. Dance is underestimated as a means of getting kids to move and use their bodies. As Ken Robinson says, it's crazy to forget these crucial aspects of education in a mad attempt to stress literacy, because all of them develop the whole child.

We must always remember that Aboriginal kids have their own particular issues and that there are refugees in Australia from war-torn Somalia and Liberia who can barely read.

We seem to be a long way from the issue of education funding. But my point is that kids with these significant issues will end up overwhelmingly in comprehensive State schools. These are the schools which bear the responsibility of finding and developing the talents we've discussed. We need always to nurture and protect the teachers who work day and night to foster the creativity of kids from a range of different backgrounds. Without teachers developing kids' talents, Australia can't survive, especially with its many neighbours whose culture demands that kids learn.

Should we get parents to pay for education in State schools? It's an attractive idea. But how would we assess who needs to pay? With difficulty. We have found often enough that wealthy people are smart at hiding their assets and minimising tax. And we need articulate parents of substance to 'belong' to State schools and defend them when under attack.

Wealthier parents have already advantaged their kids by reading to them, by feeding them adequately and providing a range of sporting and cultural challenges. It's talented yet disadvantaged kids who must concern us. And many successful people have had their education interrupted by bad schooling. We must find better ways of fostering talent in kids of all kinds, and protect schools who do that.

Yet the Abbott Government seems ideologically committed to private schools at the expense of others. Christopher Pyne, Minister for Education, has said his Government has a particular responsibility for private schools. These comments caused alarm among sections of the educational community.The President of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, Lila Mularczyk, declared:

''Students most in need of additional learning support have seen Minister Pyne turn his back on them again. We cannot rest easy when the educational gaps between schools, and often schooling systems, are entrenched and will grow because of a dismissive, dangerous budget and an Education Minister who openly claims to be emotionally driven in maintaining a relationship with the non-government sector.''

But after a kite was flown on Monday morning, the Abbott Government backed down. We are hearing phrases like "No, we didn't say that," … "it was only a draft paper", and so on. Too often we are getting ideas floated, as we have seen with the idea of raising the GST. Then when there is a hue and cry, the claim is made that " we didn't mean it, it wasn't me, I didn't do it"- the Bart Simpson defence. It has to be said, too, that the Rudd and Gillard governments did little or nothing for State schools: the "Building the Education Revolution" program was a waste of public money, especially in State schools in NSW and Victoria. The cumbersome State Departments of Education will need to be restructured in the near future.

Education in Australia is a tangle of ideologies, of proposals floated and then shot down. What we urgently need is for people in responsible positions to urge State and Federal Governments to understand that helping kids use their talents will be the way Australia can survive in a tough world. We don't need squabbles about State versus Federal, Catholic versus Protestant and so on. An end, please, to these wacky ideas for wiping the slate clean and starting all over. We can only make adjustments to what we have and what our constitution will allow. We must work out how to develop the individual talents of every kid. We need a serious, thoughtful and considered response to developing literacy and all the other skills kids need in an unpredictable world. Kids from wealthy families will always survive and do well in life. What we need is a determined effort to help the rest. And based on experience, that means never forgetting the importance of the comprehensive State school.

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About the Author

Dr Peter West is a well-known social commentator and an expert on men's and boys' issues. He is the author of Fathers, Sons and Lovers: Men Talk about Their Lives from the 1930s to Today (Finch,1996). He works part-time in the Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University, Sydney.

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