Autumn 2006

The big picture - in education

The national treasure of a national agenda for schooling

Things that deserve to be called ‘national’ help define Australia. Here Jillian Dellit explores how this is true of the development of common educational values, goals and standards for use in all states and territories. She argues for the democratic process underpinning a truly national agenda.

In November 1997, the first in a series of launches of Education Network Australia (EdNA) occurred at Michelton High School in Brisbane. This was both the Australian and the Queensland launch, by Senator Chris Ellison— Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training. In the next month, each state and territory launched EdNA within its own jurisdiction.

I had the job of coordinating the launches and, very early on, struck a nomenclature problem. Could the first launch, by a Minister of the Australian Government, be called the national launch?

Years of experience within the Education Department of a state supportive of a national agenda meant I well understood the sanctity of the word ‘national’ within education ministries and departments in Australia. ‘National’ was reserved for events, programs and policies that involved all Ministers of Education in Australia. According to this convention, the only launch that could be ‘national’ was one involving all Ministers of Education, or the Ministerial Council itself. So, each launch went by the name of its jurisdiction and the first one was dubbed both the Commonwealth Launch and the Queensland Launch.

Does that anecdote seem petty and pedantic? Does it confirm the stereotype of bureaucrats wasting time on considerations removed from the ‘real world’? After all, what does it matter to any child anywhere whether an event is termed ‘national’?

I think it does matter. I believe the preservation of this usage of ‘national’ in education is important to our democracy—the most fundamental of all the values Australian schooling systems are established to guarantee.

What happens between a teacher and child is important beyond measure. At the moment, the quality of our teachers is the single most important education requirement for our future. It is not, however, the only requirement. Men and women died for our democracy. In education more than anywhere else, we need to recognise and nurture the democratic outcomes of our federation.

Federation—the uniting of six self-governing colonies of Australia to form a union of states under a federal government on 1 January 1901—gave us some initial divisions of responsibilities and powers. These have inevitably been modified over 105 years as our world changes.

Schooling was not one of the things over which the Federal Government was given jurisdiction at Federation. Subsequent history has modified the division, but the basic responsibility remains with states. So, when we need a national voice or a national position in relation to schooling, we have no choice but to once again engage in the processes required to federate— analysis, argument, debate and negotiation. Ministers of Education have been doing it for well over 50 years.

For decades now, when they use the term ‘national’, Education Ministers in Australia and their departments have meant ‘agreed by all Australian state, territory and Commonwealth Education Ministers’. National things are the things that hold us together—every community, student, parent and teacher—that provide a benchmark for all Australians; that articulate common educational values, standards, aspirations and expectations for the future. The ‘national’ also frames our education for the rest of the world to see.

Surprisingly, few Federations are able to achieve this in education. The Canadian Education Ministers’ Council provides a ‘national voice for education in Canada’ but, partly because there is no Canadian government education ministry, it is less ambitious than its Australian counterpart. An agreement about education across the 51 United States of America is unthinkable.

Our world depends increasingly on connectedness, on how we put ideas and people together, how people work and think together. We depend on infrastructure that is sophisticated, well maintained and eventually invisible. This connectedness extends beyond the school and its community, beyond the authority that employs the teachers and provides the schools. States are the organisers of schooling in Australia, but no organiser can manage alone any more.

Like other aspects of our lives and culture, education must be networked, connected, partnered and collaborative, if it is to serve our future. Thinking you can do it on your own—whether you are an individual, an organisation or a government—is the first indicator that you can’t do it.

The achievements of national programs, national agreements and a continuous national agenda in education are far from trivial. These achievements have been hard-won and carefully nurtured by decades of far-sighted statesmen and women—both public servants and elected representatives—without, or sometimes in spite of, the spin and hype of announcements and controversy. They have persisted in the understated belief that the most important legacy a policy maker can leave may lie in these matters, and that the legacy itself is more important than recognition for persistence. Certainly there is no performance pay for having succeeded.

Inevitably, personalities, government policies and the electorate provide the tapestry upon which policies are blended and balances adjusted. The old debates of centralism/separatism, free-trade/ protectionism, and private/public ownership are reworked again and again.

On this big tapestry, working always within tensions, the Education Ministers and their heads of departments have managed to create a continuous narrative, outlasting educational and policy rifts, to give Australian schooling far more cohesion than difference. In education, our national agenda, however flawed, proclaims, ‘Here Australia stands at this point in time; this is our direction and intention.’

The national agenda might be the result of political and educational arm-wrestling. At times, it is skewed by the funding muscle of the Federal Government, by middle-management gate-keeping, or by political blocks, but every issue must be debated, balancing out educational, political and public policy considerations, before a position can be reached.

Some remarkable collaborations and agreements have resulted, building a consistent, high-quality, increasingly interoperable schooling system, shaped by nine governments. It is recognisable anywhere in the world as Australian.

Australians have tended to use ‘national’ in civic contexts. Federation gave us a national flag, national anthem, national flower, coat of arms and colours, and eventually a National Library, Museum, Gallery, Portrait Gallery, Archives, Sound and Screen Archive and War Memorial. At two periods in our short history, conscription has been called ‘national service’. At different times, the term ‘national game’ has referred to both two-up and Australian Rules football.

The world has changed a bit since 1901. Some things not considered necessary for the nation then might now be seen differently, but in 2006 the only way of achieving ‘national’ in relation to education is through negotiated agreement.

Because schooling is overwhelmingly funded by governments, it is inevitably influenced by governments of the day, by their philosophies and the balance between state and federal layers. Appropriately, analysis of the balance will continue.

Nonetheless, over time, Education Ministers in Australia have done a remarkable job of maintaining a national agenda. They have taken the long-term view in spite of short-term necessity.

While funding stoushes have become routine, Ministers know that 20 million people rattling around in 7.7 million square kilometres at the bottom of the world depend for their future on a deep, sustainable, consistent and trusted schooling system. Their Directors-General (or CEOs or Secretaries) have been, perhaps, even more aware that every child for whose education they are responsible is critical to the Australia of the future.

Each of us may find things to improve in the national agenda for schooling. That’s democratic right and responsibility at work. We should, however, recognise the educational, democratic and policy importance of the term ‘national agenda’ and the treasure that it represents in our society.

Jillian Dellit is the director of The Le@rning Federation Secretariat.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au