LEAPING into the Canadian education system

Twelve of Australia’s leading educators and researchers are to tour Canada to learn more about how schools in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia attain equity and achievement.

The tour, supported by Australian Learning Lecture, has been organised by Leading Educators Around the Planet.

This venture comes at a critical time. There is increasing concern about enrolment segregation and the concentration of disadvantage in Australia’s schools – and a growing interest in what other countries and jurisdictions may be doing to avoid what seems to be Australia’s school future.

Recent concerns, (including from the Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System), refer to the increasing segregation of school enrolments; and unequal access to quality resources by level of student advantage.

Inequity and enrolment segregation are seen as contributing to a disproportionate impact of student peers on overall student outcomes. These are systemic issues and point to the need for solutions beyond the individual school level. They are expected to become increasingly prominent in 2024 and beyond.

The team is interested in in efforts to achieve:

• a greater mix of students in each school,
• improvement, or at the very least no decline, in student outcomes,
• a sustainable balance between schooling equity and parental choice,
• a widely supported framework of schools and school funding policy

“Of particular interest is Canada’s overall system and the differences between ‘public’ and ‘private’, and whether public/secular and private/religious schools are subject to similar obligations, accountabilities, policies and procedures,” he said.