The new national school evidence institute – lost in review

Third, the review is being conducted by a former Queensland senior public servant with seemingly no direct administrative or policy experience in education. Notwithstanding the possible benefits of the appointee’s lack of education baggage, and substantial legal expertise which may be more pertinent in resolving the existing complex institutional governance arrangements and those concerning the evidence institute,  it is still puzzling that a review of this magnitude is conducted by an education ‘outsider’.

The review is expected to be discussed at the forthcoming Education Council meeting on 6 December, but it’s not clear there a great deal of information about the actual roles of the evidence institute.

Although some key stakeholders — including those in the non-government sector — were consulted by the review once it had been established, most have not been informed about its final recommendations.

So, given the subsequent necessary processing of its recommendations by federal, state and territory education ministers at the Education Council in December and then consultations with their respective governments, as well as eventually with others — do not expect the evidence institute to be operational for some considerable time yet.

Things move slowly in education; after all it is merely our children’s future at stake!. 

It could all be for naught anyway. There is precedent for recent national reviews on the national school architecture largely being ignored, sidelined and subverted.

We’ve seen the Nous group’s 2014 report on “Future arrangements for national education entities,” the 2015 review of ACARA, and the 2015 Functional and Efficiency Review of the Commonwealth Education Department.

More recently, the Productivity Commission’s report on the national education evidence base was released in 2017, canvassing possible institutional arrangements to develop, collect, hold and distribute data and evidence to improve student outcomes. A revised ACARA was recommended. The Commonwealth gave no official response to the report.

We have also been here before. A similar national body — the Education Research Development Committee (ERDC) — was established by the Gorton Coalition Government in 1970 to “advise on priorities in education research,” and to allocate research funding. It was abolished by the Fraser Coalition Government in 1981 as part of its razor gang exercise.

To avoid history repeating itself, and to avoid further disappointment, there is a need to articulate how this new, possibly Canberra-based, ‘evidence institute’ will actually have any impact.

Research in education — unlike what many consider is the case in medicine and science — is not always conclusive. Its cause and effect are less direct, the quality of evidence highly variable, and proposals more hotly contested as personal, organisational and ideological positions and vested interests shout loudly to impede implementation.

Also, our school systems are almost completely controlled by state and territory governments, staffed by a union-dominated profession with teachers trained by faculties of education — all of which have at different times shown resistance to the abundance of quality evidence already available.