Productivity Commission submission

The Australian Learning Lecture, in conjunction with Chris Bonnor and Tom Greenwell, has put in a submission to the Productivity Commission’s interim report, Building a skilled and adaptable workforce.

Our submission argues that by itself the strategy outlined in the report will fall well short of expectations. The problem lies in section one, The best resources to improve school student outcomes. This section reflects a range of assumptions and beliefs about school education in Australia that don’t match the reality on the ground.

The submission warns that as a result, Building a skilled and adaptable workforce risks joining a succession of reform interventions which fail to recognise the extent to which the current system falls short in its equity, efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy. (Read more)

“Australian schools form complex socio-educational hierarchies which are evident in almost every Australian community. These hierarchies both create and reflect differences between schools in terms of who they enrol, the obligations they are required to meet, the opportunities they provide to their students and their learning outcomes. These differences are especially derived from the unequal capacity of schools to determine who enrols, and in terms of accepted measurable outcomes, who succeeds and who fails.”

Our submission contends that the substantial and increasing concentration of disadvantaged students into low SES schools, combined with the well-researched peer impact on student achievement, is neither acknowledged nor considered by the report. This impact has increasingly diminished the success of reforms targeted at the level of schools, while ignoring the need to reform the wider framework within which schools operate.

“Unless this framework is restructured in ways that reduce the impact of enrolment differentiation and discrimination – and create a more level ‘playing field’ of schools – the contribution of schools to “building a skilled and adaptable workforce” will remain limited.

Read more: Submission to Productivity Commission FINAL