Five truths about Australia's education system

It is a common plea for more money to be added into the education system, but there is less a plea to account for the efficiency or effectiveness of how the money is to be spent to improve outcomes. The program logic stops at some point in the causal chain: add more money to get more teachers, lower class sizes and more teacher aide support, but where is the evidence that all these extra resources lead to improved learning?

Experts like Professor Hattie argue that "how to spend money effectively" should be one of the key future drivers of education policy. He is right.

Which brings me to my third truth – that we need to act on what the best evidence informs us we should be doing in our schools and in our education systems.

While there is overwhelming evidence on a number of key areas ranging from: teacher quality, school autonomy, the value of private investment and choice, the limits of increased spending, and how best to teach literacy – too often the evidence is ignored or side-lined because of ideological dispositions, self-interest or because it just plain hard to do.

Examples include some resistance to the proper teaching of phonics despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of its value and public reports of more than a decade in age demonstrating the type of reforms that we should be pursuing.

So in our Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes policy statement we have genuinely sought to identify only those reforms where there is clear evidence that they can have a positive impact and where public funds can be best invested to lift student achievement.

We have avoided a scatter-gun approach, of trying to intrude into every area of education, from classroom to playing field or swimming pool, or to meet every whim that every person may have. Our focus is specific, to lift the basic outcomes in reading and literacy, in numeracy, maths and STEM, in foreign languages, in teacher quality.

We also, and this is the fourth truth, recognise the limits of the Commonwealth to influence education outcomes.

It is not only that the Commonwealth runs no schools, employs no teachers and is only a partial funder of the whole school system, but also the levers to deliver reform are limited in our case.

Nevertheless, given Commonwealth spending on schools will grow from $16 billion in 2016 to more than $20 billion in 2020 it is understandable that we want our funds to be spent effectively and I am determined to leverage that funding to get the best possible outcomes especially from the states and territories.

For instance, further improving teacher quality will, if we are successful, be achieved by utilising existing professional standards and processes that are already operating in several states. We need effective incentives to reward our most capable teachers, our most highly accomplished teachers and to encourage them to ensure that they go and work in some of our most needy or disadvantaged schools. We are setting realistic timeframes to improve the take up of STEM subjects in years 11 and 12 because we know other measures have to be taken to implement this initiative, but we know having that clear requirement and ambition in those final years is central to ensuring that students have a commitment and maintain their interest in those subjects through the middle years.

These truths are just a small number of those that I could address. They serve as a reminder to focus on what matters and where we can make a difference.

With record growing yet affordable funding guaranteed, and a strong commitment to needs based funding distribution, the Turnbull Government will pursue the types of reforms that can support schools to get the best outcome for their students, in preparation for the dynamic world before them. We have an outstanding education system upon which we will build even better things into the future.