Better education begins with better democracy
Australia’s increasingly segregated school system is weakening both educational equality and social cohesion. Breaking the policy deadlock may require giving citizens a greater role in shaping long-term decisions about education.
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Australia’s increasingly segregated school system is weakening both educational equality and social cohesion. Breaking the policy deadlock may require giving citizens a greater role in shaping long-term decisions about education.
For decades, Australians have argued about schools as though the problem was simply one of education policy. Funding formulas, curriculum reforms, teacher shortages, NAPLAN and school choice dominate the debate. Yet perhaps we have been looking in the wrong place.
Despite countless reviews, inquiries and election promises, one trend has remained remarkably consistent. Australia now has one of the most socially segregated school systems in the OECD.
Funding inequalities have tended to make public education the safety net for those who can’t afford private education. Public schools now educate a disproportionate number of students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, while many families with the means to do so have moved into the private sector. Educational inequality has widened, and opportunities for children from different backgrounds to learn together have diminished.
This is having dire consequences for our democracy. Schools do more than teach literacy, numeracy and vocational skills. They help shape the kind of society a nation becomes.
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Continue reading this article by Dem36 Chairperson, Prof Alan Reid, at the Pearls and Irritations website. In the article, Prof Reid - one of Australia's foremost experts in education policy - lucidly sets out how an increasingly segregated schooling system is weakening social cohesion, and how our current democratic policy-making model has been evidently unable to change course. It is widely understood that curriculum reforms, notably enhancing civics education, are necessary for improving democratic practice. In this article, Prof Reid highlights how the reverse is also the case: reforms to our democratic practices are necessary in order to improve education policy. As Professor Reid states: "Better education begins with better democracy."