The Top Three Education Priorities the Government Needs to Address and Refresh for 2023
In 1849, The French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" - the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Fitting words to apply when discussing education priorities for 2023.
The Australian Government Productivity Commission recently released the report of the National School Reform Agreement. The report identified ‘common reform challenges’ across all jurisdictions:
- Support quality teaching and effective school leadership
- Support all students to achieve basic levels of literacy and numeracy
- Reduce differences in achievement across students
- Promote wellbeing.
The report suggested that greater flexibility, accountability and transparency will advance these reforms. High stakes testing is the comparative measure of student and school performance. The 2020 review ‘Nurturing Wonder and Igniting Passion’ used combinations of NAPLAN and PISA scores to measure performance against OECD countries, and to assert the need for reform of the curriculum.
The Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), introduced in 2018, is the measures of ‘the amount of public funding needed by each school to meet the educational needs of its students’.
The 2021 independent inquiry 'Valuing the teaching profession' reported two-thirds of teachers say they are reconsidering their future in the profession due to workload and three-quarters of teachers and school leaders said they felt stressed frequently or all the time at work. The authors concluded that "All aspects of the work of teachers has grown in volume and complexity". Systemic changes to processes, funding and support for teachers and school leaders must be practical and part of future salaries agreement.
While the Commonwealth Government is quick to cite the growth in recurrent funding for schools the reality is that schools are facing increased demand for resources.
The National Teacher Workforce Action Plan was released in December 2022. The plan resulted from consultation between education ministers, teachers, school leaders and other education experts. The plan identified the following priority areas:
- Elevating the profession
- Improving teacher supply
- Strengthening initial teacher education
- Maximising the time to teach
- Better understanding future teacher workforce needs.
Teacher Unions, independent reviews and Government briefings have clearly identified several factors that are contributing to industrial action, shortages in staff and the profession in crisis. Uncompetitive salaries and the intensification of teachers' work and the profound changes in the work and workload of teachers and school leaders highlight a priority for government to address.
Improved salaries are an important recognition of the profession. More than a pay rise, teachers and school leaders are calling for improvements to working conditions, increased time for preparation and collaboration and an urgent reduction in administration and compliance workloads.
The Queensland government has stuck an historic deal with the Queensland Teacher Union that addresses and improve salary and working conditions. The significant improvements to salary and working conditions reflect the vital work of teachers and school leaders in that state. Importantly, this agreement speaks clearly to point that teachers need more than a pay rise.
The 2022 NSW Parliamentary inquiry into teacher shortages took written submissions and held public hearings. The government submission identified 37% of the full-time equivalent workforce are employed in temporary or casual jobs. This equates to almost 26,000 teachers in non-permanent positions.
The Victorian Government has recently announced targeted incentives including financial incentives to Victorian government schools to attract teachers - the 2022 National Action Plan teacher shortage.
It is evident that the teaching profession is undervalued and overworked. Improvements to address the increasing complexity in work of teachers and school leaders is an important priority that government needs to address in 2023. The Gonski review (2010) reported 23 recommendations and 16 findings. The review emphasized the need for an equitable school funding model that ensures educational outcomes are not the ‘result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions.’ The failure to achieve the goals of Gonski review is the result of successive governments and increased funding for education proves to be the most important priority that government needs and must address in 2023.