DAVID REYNE:
And she subjected thousands of school kids to another exam, the NAPLAN exam. It’s just as well kids don’t vote.
KIM WATKINS:
Well, NAPLAN results will be sent to parents next week, but parents won’t be the only ones interested in how students in schools stack up. Labor’s proposal to publish league tables on schools’ performances has created a stir among teachers, principals and parents. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education Julia Gillard, joins us now for a chat. Good morning, Julia.
DAVID REYNE:
Good morning, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD:
Good morning.
DAVID REYNE:
Now can we start with the OECD figures that came out last night. Now they are, let me get this right, the 2008 Education at a Glance Report, which revealed that Australia’s spending on education, public education, all levels of education, was below the OECD amount. Now you’ve said that that is long … there was some longstanding areas of underperformance and underinvestment. What are they and how are we going to fix that?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well it’s certainly a very revealing report. It came out last night, but it’s actually 2005 figures.
DAVID REYNE:
Oh, so it’s not your problem.
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, it’s our problem to fix it. Because what the 2005 figures clearly show is that we’re spending less than the OECD average on education. We’re coming 19th out of 28 countries—that’s not good.
DAVID REYNE:
That’s terrible.
JULIA GILLARD:
And we’re particularly down the bottom of the class when it comes to investment in early childhood, those vital early learning years. And we’re underperforming when comes to vocational education and training and higher education. So we’ve go to do more right across the board. I mean what this OECD report is telling us is that we do need an education revolution. We’ve starting on that revolution with more investments in early childhood, more investments in vocational education and training and universities, and we’re working on a lot more resources for schools, particularly in discussions with our state and territory colleagues.
KIM WATKINS:
What’s this going to cost? How much is the Government spending at the moment? Because, bearing in mind, we’re so far behind already. I mean, really the amount of money involved here is extraordinary.
JULIA GILLARD:
It is extraordinary. The May Budget saw an extra $19 billion into education; $11 billion of it into our Education Investment Fund, which is about new investments in capital. We’re spending a lot more on computers in schools—$1.2 billion; a lot on Trades Training Centres—$2.5 billion. But we need to do more, we know that. We’ve already allocated more than half a billion for early childhood education and we’re interested in better investments in schools, greater investments in schools. We want every kid to have the chance at a great education and on the world rankings now, we know we’re slipping behind.
DAVID REYNE:
I notice that there’s … you’ve earmarked half a million dollars for under … what they call disadvantaged schools. Now, how do you discover, how do you work out which is a disadvantaged school? And will that be revealed as a result of the NAPLAN?
JULIA GILLARD:
They’re connected but they’re not entirely the same thing. What we’re talking about with states and territories, with the Catholic and independent school systems, is to say, ‘Let’s be frank about this. If we look across the suburbs of our cities, our regional centres, we know there are some schools that are really struggling. And we want to do more to make sure those schools can lift themselves up and offer a great education.’
Now, to identify those schools, we obviously have ABS data from the Bureau of Statistics, from the Census, about which are the low-income areas in this country. The National Assessment Program will help us identify schools that aren’t reaching the kind of standards that we want kids to get to. And there are other things that can tell us about disadvantage in schools—number of Indigenous children enrolled, for example; number of children with disabilities. We want to put all of that in the mix, identify the schools that are doing it tough and then bring extra resources to those schools to make a difference.
KIM WATKINS:
Do you understand, though, the principals and the teachers and some parents concerned about identifying those schools?
DAVID REYNE:
Yeah, is that not demoralising to a certain extent?
JULIA GILLARD:
I can understand that, and we want to find a way of doing this that isn’t about stigma. It’s not about saying ‘bad school’. It’s about …
KIM WATKINS:
It’s not about threats?
JULIA GILLARD:
It most certainly not about threats. It’s about saying to schools, ‘Look if you’re doing it tough, let’s come along with some new resources and work with you to make a difference.’ And we know that the best principals, the best teachers, want to see their school succeed. So I suspect they would actually be welcoming that partnership to make a difference for the students in their school.
KIM WATKINS:
There’s not another plan later on to then start axing schools that are underperforming or not coping?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, the Prime Minister certainly said that what we want to do is come to those schools with extra resources. We want to work with them. We’re prepared to do that and we know it’s going to take time to get change. Ultimately, if you saw a school that was clearly underperforming, even compared with very comparable schools, then you’d have to ask yourself the question why. But, really, this is about extra resources for schools, extra support. And I know that it can make people feel uncomfortable because we’re going to be identifying and looking at schools that need this assistance. But the alternative is just to turn a blind eye and say it isn’t happening. Well, it is happening. There are schools that are struggling where kids aren’t getting a good start in life, the best possible chance at education. We’ve got an obligation to fix that.
DAVID REYNE:
The PM also said recently that he wanted parents to ‘vote with their feet’ where schooling is concerned. What does he mean by that? If you identify an underperforming school, does that send a message to parents to go somewhere else? Is there a choice? Is there always a viable choice?
JULIA GILLARD:
I think what the Prime Minister’s saying and what the Government overall is saying is two things: one, parents are entitled to good information about schools in their local community, their area. If you move to a new state and you wanted to enrol your children in the suburb where you just moved to, then you would want to know how the schools are going, what are they like, what programs do they offer, how they are achieving. You are entitled to that as a parent and that will feed into the choice you make about education. A lot of other things will feed into that choice too. You know, people want to have a Catholic education for their children because they view that as important because they’re Catholics. I mean, these things are a mix. But we want to make sure that people get objective information about schools. So that’s sort of number one.
Number two, we want to look and see where schools are struggling and if they are struggling, we want to make a difference with additional resources.
KIM WATKINS:
Julia, what about and how do you handle the obvious potential problem where private schools will cull children who are not up to scratch, therefore putting more pressure on the state systems?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, I think if we’ve got really good measures about where disadvantage is, the kind of kids who are in school, then we’re going to be looking at those schools that are catering for the broadest possible mix. I mean, I understand that kids come to school with a mix of abilities, advantages and challenges. Kids that come out of great homes where there’s been a lot of focus on early education, obviously start school with a flying start. Kids that come out of homes where no one reads, where there are no books …
KIM WATKINS: Yeah, it’s about scooping them up.
JULIA GILLARD:
It’s about scooping them up. So we’re going to be looking at those schools where more, you know the kids need scooping up, to use your words, and bring in extra resources to bear there. A lot of those schools will be state schools. But not just state schools, there are some independent schools, some non-government schools, that work in disadvantaged communities. Indeed, there are some schools that have made it their mission to work in those disadvantaged communities. Some of our Catholic schools deliberately go and set up in communities that they think are doing it the toughest because they want to make a difference.
So we’re not going to look at public-private divide. We’re going to say, ‘Where is disadvantage?’ and make a difference.
DAVID REYNE:
Okay, so private schools won’t be to their detriment that disadvantaged schools are getting extra funding?
JULIA GILLARD:
We’ve said that we’re guaranteeing all of the funding for the private schools. That’s a done deal. Everything else that we’re talking about is extra—additional money for disadvantaged schools and we’re talking about additional money to invest in teacher quality.
DAVID REYNE:
Teacher quality—let’s talk about that, because you’ve identified that as an area, that you want to improve the quality of teaching. But you want to do it, am I right, in shortening teacher-training programs?
JULIA GILLARD:
I think frankly that’s been a little bit misunderstood. What we’re saying with our current teaching workforce is we’ve got, you know, thousands of great teachers out there who have devoted their lives to teaching …
DAVID REYNE:
But you want more.
JULIA GILLARD:
… and that’s fantastic. But the teaching workforce is ageing. A lot of them will retire in the next 10 to15 years. We’re already short in specialist areas like maths and science. The Government’s already investing in trying to fix that with special incentives to get people to go maths and science teaching. But when we look at the pipeline the other end—you lots of teachers retiring, who’s coming in—we know that demand for teacher education courses has fallen and when demand falls, the scores you need to get in fall as well. So whilst we’ve got some incredibly bright and enthusiastic Australians who want to go teaching, it is true you could get into a teacher education course today having really only just passed Year 12. When we see that we want to say, ‘Let’s encourage the best and brightest to go teaching,’ and we’ve looked at some models overseas. They do include accelerated courses in this sense, that there’s less time sitting in the university lecture theatre and more time in the classroom learning to be a teacher.
KIM WATKINS:
Look, before we run out of time, I want to talk to you about NAPLAN from a parent’s perspective. What will NAPLAN show them? What’s going to be contained in the information and why is it important for parents?
JULIA GILLARD:
This is the first year ever that our students sat around the country that did the same tests—grades 3, 7, 5 and 9.
DAVID REYNE:
Didn’t we do those with the AIMS tests?
JULIA GILLARD: We’ve had tests before that were state based and then statisticians came in and moderated one state against another.
DAVID REYNE:
Okay.
KIM WATKINS:
Yes.
JULIA GILLARD:
This is the first time every child sat down and done exactly the same test. So, parents from the start of next week on will get a report from their school. The report will show how their child has gone on bands of achievement.
KIM WATKINS:
So the national average?
JULIA GILLARD:
Yes. So on looking at that, we’ve got the student’s result, that’s how your child achieved.
KIM WATKINS:
That’s the dot at the top.
JULIA GILLARD:
Yep, the dot at the top. We’ve got the national average—that’s how kids around the country achieve, so this child’s going very well indeed. And then you would also see reported where the minimum benchmark is. So, for example, for a child in Year 3, if they’re in Band 1 then they’re below the minimum standard we think kids at that age should be at. If they’re in Band 2, they’re at the minimum standard. If they’re in Band 1, obviously we want to have special programs and policies to lift them up.
So, looking at it, you know, ‘How is my child going where they are on the bands? How are they going versus the average of kids around the country? How are they going as compared with the minimum standard?’—you’ll be able to see that all on display.
KIM WATKINS:
I know lots of parents are very excited about it actually because they really want to have …
DAVID REYNE:
It absolutely makes sense for parents.
KIM WATKINS:
Well, I think part of the frustration in recent years is that, you know, parents get reports that are worded in a very non-descript way and they actually want to know how their child is going compared to everyone else.
JULIA GILLARD:
And I think having that sense of right around the nation is very important too and this will be the first time we can truly give that because children have done the same test.
DAVID REYNE:
Julia, you couldn’t live on the age pension, we couldn’t live on the age pension. Why should we expect the pensioners live on the age pension? The Prime Minister came out last night and he said, ‘We’re looking at.’ You’re sitting on a fat surplus. Let’s give them some money. It’s that easy.
DAVID REYNE:
You didn’t say no.
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, we’ve done … I’m not sure that it is that easy when it comes to Federal Government.
DAVID REYNE:
Come on, just turn out the cash!
JULIA GILLARD:
But we’ve done some things already to make a difference in this year’s Budget, the May Budget. We invested in a $500 cash bonus for pensioners, plus we took the utilities allowance that helps them pay the quarterly bills as they come in, from $107 to $500. So, $1000 there in total—cash bonus and utilities allowance.
On the 20th of this month, people’s pensions will get indexed. So for a single pensioner, you’ll get around $15 more. Now I know that those things are there and they make some difference to take a bit of pressure off, but the Prime Minister certainly signalled we want to do more. This problem didn’t start yesterday, and I can make a politician’s point, it didn’t start last November either.
JULIA GILLARD:
This has been a long time in the making and we’ve got to make sure we get it right for the future. And that’s why we’ve got a major review in the area, and pensioners are getting to come to talk to people during the course of that review and have their voices heard.
KIM WATKINS:
Alright, let’s look forward to it. I’m sure they’ll be appreciating it too. Good to talk to you, Julia. Thanks for your time.
DAVID REYNE:
Thank you for your time.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thank you.
ENDS