Education policy guided by Federal purse strings

School education is a state issue, but who really controls the big policy areas? Increasingly it appears to be the Federal Government, writes WENDY CURRIE.

The Federal Government uses a variety of avenues open to them to control policy, not the least of which is by making federal funding contingent on states/territories accepting specific conditions.

This can be seen most recently with the conditions attached to the latest funding offer, most spectacularly in relation to public reporting of school achievement against national benchmarks for literacy, numeracy, vocational education and training and so on.

The Federal Government employs no teachers and runs no schools. Its position on such matters is driven by purely ideological and political perspectives. To give some quasi-legitimacy to its position on a range of educational issues, it recently conducted a 'scoping study' of parents' and community members' attitudes to schooling. This was undertaken via a phone survey which collected responses from 1359 parents of school children and 1500 community members. The respondents were asked about a range of issues including their level of satisfaction with school and the standard of teaching, and factors influencing choice of school.

They were also asked to rank the importance of the following:

• national standards for teachers and school leaders
• national school qualifications
• standard tertiary entrance requirements across Australia
• standard national curriculum
• standard school starting age across Australia
• standard school leaving age across Australia.

You might recognise some of these as forming part of the parcel of conditions attached to the receipt of federal funds.

Most of them are also included, in some form or another, on the agendas of taskforces attached to MCEETYA (the Ministerial Council on Education Employment and Youth Affairs). Two or three times a year, state and territory and federal ministers meet to discuss, among other things, papers prepared by these taskforces. Each taskforce is coordinated by a particular state/territory and they include:

• Performance Measurement and Reporting
• Student Learning and Support Services
• Schools Resourcing
• Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership
• Transition from School
• Indigenous Education, Employment, and Youth
• Information and Communication Technologies in Schools
• Targeted Initiatives of National Significance
• Youth

In the next month or two it is anticipated that Dr Nelson will make further announcements that fit rather too snugly with the list of national items respondents in his scoping study were asked to rank. For example, an announcement on a National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership is believed to be imminent. Early reports suggest what will be proposed could not be characterised as a body for the profession and governed by the profession which is what Dr Nelson foreshadowed last year. (This institute should not be confused with the proposed NSW Institute of Teachers.)

One of the purposes of Dr Nelson's institute would be the development of national teaching standards.

One wonders what item from the list in the scoping study will be the basis of Dr Nelson's next announcement.

Wendy Currie is a Research Officer.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005