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Equity
Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for all Australian schools
We urgently need a new conversation about Australian education. The country that prides itself on a ‘fair go’ is letting down our young people. Australia’s track record of educational achievement is now among the most inequitable of any country in the OECD, with an increasing gap between the achievement in low socio-economic schools compared to students who live in better off postcodes.
On a global scale Australia’s school education system is unique, but in all the wrong ways. The reality is our hybrid public private framework is not fit for purpose. It is unlike any other framework in the world. Many similar countries have ensured a more equitable education for every student, while allowing a diversity of schools to best meet student needs. The experience of these countries, and their success in international education rankings, suggests alternatives for Australia.
We see many proposals for school reform in Australia. But most of these proposals focus on changing school practice. If we don’t also put in place a new equitable framework of how we fund and regulate our schools these proposals have little chance to improve equality of opportunity and educational achievement for all our young people.
The Australian Learning Lecture commissioned Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for all Australian schools to raise a different conversation about equity in Australian schools.
Our proposal explores the creation of a framework in which all schools have commensurate public obligations in return for public funding from Commonwealth and state governments.
Tom Greenwell
Tom is co-author with Chris Bonnor of Waiting for Gonski, How Australia failed its schools (UNSW Press 2022). He writes about Australian education policy for Inside Story and The Canberra Times and teaches history and politics in the ACT public education system. He previously worked as a research officer for the Australian Education Union.
Chris Bonnor
Chris is a former teacher and secondary school principal, a previous head of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, co-author with Jane Caro of The Stupid Country and What Makes a Good School, and co-author of Waiting for Gonski. He has jointly authored papers on Australia’s schools in association with the Centre for Policy Development and the Gonski Institute for Education.
We welcome your thoughts about our proposal.
Questions, objections, support are all crucial to the conversation we need to have.
Please leave your comments below.
Publication
Toggle MenuChoice and Fairness: A Common Framework for all Australian schools puts forward a proposal to create a new equitable framework of how we fund and regulate our schools.
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Equity Podcasts
Toggle MenuWe invite you to learn more about why the Australian Learning Lecture commissioned Choice and Fairness, a common framework for all Australian schools.
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