A view of schooling in Australia

However, there are other messy items that could be fixed in a wink if there is a will to do it. We need to set some boundaries … such as:

• age of compulsory attendance. There is an obvious need for mandated ages of attendance. Why there is even the slightest variation between them from state to state bedevils logic.
• first year at school. It is difficult for the ordinary parent to understand why, after entering a school, states have different names for the first year at a school, attendance at which is sometimes voluntary. It seems unbelievable that NSW and the ACT call the first year Kindergarten; Tasmania and Queensland call it Preparatory; South Australia calls it Reception; Northern territory calls it Transition; and Western Australia calls it Pre-primary. Voluntary organisations have no place in the proposed model.

One is compelled to ask: what is so difficult for a country as small as ours to have a standard age of entry - such as turning five years of age by a set date - and to call the child’s first year at school Year One … and for each child to progress year by year to the end of school ?

Child care facilities now abound for parents who wish to enrol their children for pre-school activities before five years of age. At the other end of schooling, the provision for vocational preparation is wide-spread. These voluntary-attendance sectors of schooling receive far better treatment than do regular schools in between.

While this mess persists, it must make things awkward for schools to tolerate. The compilation of a national curriculum and the conduct of third party blanket tests before stabilising the boundaries is quite crazy. First things first, one would think.

In summary some sincere, experience-based thought is required and two major issues stand out :

1. while there may be some positive arguments for a national curriculum, its introduction while structures are so wonky defies belief. The age-grade factors needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
2. there is no plausible reason for consuming time, money, and teaching effort on fear-based tests and the consequential dumbing-down of healthy curriculum enterprises. Such tests are [A] Unnecessary. Teachers know their children well. Sharing the evaluation of effort is a three-way constant contact and there are now some wonderful shared evaluation techniques available [B] Immoral. Yes. Immoral. Forcing children to go to school and then creating a threatening environment is immoral and cruel. An undemocratic government in totalitarian mode did not ask for the parent’s permission in writing; and parents still need to be informed that they can request that their child spend the time learning something instead of partaking in the contest. Present day Principals are at legal risk, as well. They have a duty of care. Forcing children to endure an out-of-school influence that creates a stressful situation is surely firm grounds for litigation. To place employees in such a situation compounds the felony; and liability will also fall further up the chain of command in any system of schooling. [C] Wasteful. Apart from occupying useful learning time, a school that is jealous of its reputation will practise for the tests as much as possible. Out goes the baby with the bathwater. [D] Costly. Test-construction and administration requires high spending on personnel, offices, and equipment. It is money that has to be diverted from learning resources. If the tests are purchased elsewhere, they are very costly. It is reported that the test-construction sector of the Washington Post is its most profitable section. [E] Curriculum spirit is destroyed. Learning is on-going, developmental, and joyful. Schools make plans in terms of the cope-ability of its clients. The natures of children’s backgrounds vary from school to school, so curriculum plans cater for local needs. Third party control ruins the pupil relationship at all stages.

I am truly fearful for Australia’s future.

Try this for a comparison. New Zealand recently imported an English teaching guru whose specialty is “Learnacy”: a vogue word that encompasses other -acy words but means that children need to develop their skills of learning. He, Professor Claxton, suggests that we should narrow the gap between the way we learn at school and the way we learn in the outside world. His views go hand-in-hand with NZ’s “new curriculum”. Australia imported a New York lawyer whose specialty is “Payment by Results” fear-based testing. They are presently being imposed on unwilling “inmates”. Failure is punishable. I shall not be around long enough to compare the outcomes, but I have seen it before. Sad. Really sad.

Australia has hundreds and hundreds of truly outstanding school-based experts; probably superior to any imports. They are called Principals. Someone should listen to them and maybe even do as they suggest.