EduResearch Matters

EduResearch Matters is a blog for educational researchers in Australia to get their work and opinions out to the general public. Please join us here. We would love to get your comments and feedback about our work.

Working future: Now, how to build a bridge

higher education, vocational education and training (VET), , , ,

The Federal Government’s white paper Working Future argues for closer cooperation between vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE). The goal is a seamless array of lifelong education opportunities for Australians. 

Here’s the problem. VET and HE don’t always work well together, prompting commentators to characterise the Australian tertiary sector as a ‘binary’. But that’s not my only concern – the white paper reflects a degree of amnesia about the history of the sector. The silos of VET and HE are largely creations of government policy over several decades.

The call for a more effective tertiary sector runs up against a complex of differences: dimensions of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, teacher preparation, regulation, funding and marketisation. These individual differences have sprung from government policy, even in relation to fundamentally educational categories.

One of these differences stands out as fundamental for both educators and policy makers. Curriculum is fundamental because it expresses the meaning of educational intentions and experience. In the context of Australian tertiary education and its problematic binary structure, the importance of curriculum is amplified. 

On one side of the tertiary binary, a single curriculum model has been successfully imposed on providers and teachers while the other side has managed to avoid it. On the VET side, ‘competency-based training’ (CBT) was implemented as a system-wide model for all government-funded provision. Its justification was economic and social. In the 1980s, the Labour Government initiated sweeping reforms to reposition Australia as a global economic competitor across its portfolios, including VET. Higher education was targeted too, but it effectively resisted imposition of a CBT approach.  

The upshot was that HE was left to follow its own lights in regard to curriculum. Of course, there are broad structures that impinge on curriculum in HE, such as the Australian Qualifications Framework, but their level of prescription is modest, at least in terms of implications for actual curriculum. 

The lack of centralised control over HE curriculum turned out to be a boon for that side of the tertiary sector. It means HE providers can exercise maximum creativity in relation to curriculum, and rest on the expertise and insight of their teachers and researchers to craft learning experiences that directly reflect the requirements of disciplines, study areas and professions with a stake in HE. 

Even where standards are produced by professional associations and tied to program accreditation, HE providers have latitude to meet those standards in unique and innovative ways and the conceptualisation of standards is specific to the industry involved (rather than a generic model like CBT).

It is worth pointing out that if professional standards become too prescriptive then curriculum quality suffers and teachers may become alienated. 

That is precisely what has happened in VET. CBT can be regarded as a highly prescriptive implementation of standards relating to industries served by that system. Instead of high-level expressions of essential capabilities such as those prepared by Engineers Australia and used in HE engineering programs, competency standards in VET are intricately detailed and include very specific requirements about what knowledge and skills are supposed to underpin competent performances and how those performances should be assessed. 

The curricular impact of adherence to such standards is hard to overstate. It is possible to imagine that very uninformed providers and teachers might benefit from that level of prescription, but for the bulk of educators in VET the imposition is frustrating and even demoralising. As such, the quality of the whole system may be compromised through overprescription of industry standards. 

But it takes educational expertise to untangle many of these issues. At the level of policy making, high levels of prescription may be reassuring.  Policy makers may find it difficult to trace ramifications for curriculum innovation and quality.

From a curriculum angle, an effective tertiary sector in Australia would require stepping back and considering how to find a productive balance between industry or professional standards on the one hand, and curriculum innovation on the other. 

Critical here is the level of prescription attached to standards. Those representing industries and professions should leave educational decisions to those with educational expertise. As the VET experience demonstrates, it is easy for industry representatives to stray into the realm of curriculum decision-making and thereby impose constraints on educational innovation and quality that in turn undermine provider and teacher expertise and motivation. 

A more effective tertiary sector would be one where great care is taken to promote curricular creativity across both VET and HE. Winding back the curricular constraints implicit in the Australian implementation of CBT in VET is one way to address the binary of our tertiary sector. At the same time, those who work in HE should remain vigilant. It is not hard to imagine a scenario in which standards for an area like Initial Teacher Education (ITE) become politicised and from there become more prescriptive and exert stronger influence over actual curriculum in ITE degrees. In a scenario like that, the quandary in which expert and caring educators in VET find themselves could become a reality for education academics responsible for ITE.

This Blog is based in part on a recent MCERA Webinar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsQKX6SoReU) and on a paper by Hodge, Guthrie, Jones and Waters currently under review. Contact Steven Hodge (s.hodge@griffith.edu.au) for a copy of the draft.

Steven Hodge is a member of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research (GIER) and of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, where he is Director of the Master of Education and Graduate Certificate in Professional Learning programs. He is immediate past president of the Australasian Vocational Education and Training Association and key contributor to debate in Australian post-compulsory education.

To understand AI today, we need both why and how

artificial intelligence, , , ,

We know AI is such a big deal that just this week the President of the United States, Joe Biden, signed an executive order to try to address the risks of a technology he described as “the most consequential technology of our time”.

So it is no wonder that the proliferation of both AI tools and of conferences during 2023 continues unabated.

And how seriously are we taking the challenge of AI in Australia? Our focus is disproportionately focused on “how”, while larger questions of “why” seem opaque. 

Now is a good time to reflect on where we are with AI. We might now have much greater capacity to generate data, but whether this is leading to knowledge, let alone wisdom, is up for serious debate.

A time to reflect

The number of AI tools and their applications to education is overwhelming, and certainly way beyond initial angst about ChatGPT and cheating that set the tone for the start of the 2023 academic year. 

But, as Maslow once wisely mused, only having a hammer makes us see every problem as a nail. If we have these powerful technologies, knowing how to use them can’t be the only issue. We need to talk more about why and when we use them. This goes to the heart of what we hold as the purposes of education. 

The case of the smartphone provides a useful comparison. First launched in 1992, it took until 2007 for the iPhone to disrupt the technology conversation. Some dreamed of, and seized, the opportunities in education such a device enabled. Others exercised caution, waiting to follow the early adopters only once the path was cleared.

UNESCO advice

Sixteen years later, though, responses have sharpened. UNESCO recently advised that smartphones should only be used where they benefit learning, advice that admittedly seems self-evident. It has taken so long for such a statement to emerge, though, it suggests the “tool” is having ongoing impacts well beyond learning. Sadly, too many examples from schools attest to the harnessing of smartphone power for abusive and manipulative purposes, particularly with sexual violence. The rise of AI has only exacerbated some of these concerns.

The potent combination of learning disengagement and social dysfunction continues to create challenges for how technology is used in schools. There is a rising chorus in support of more handwriting. Some jurisdictions have moved to wholesale banning of mobile phones at school. 

How we’ve dealt with smartphones should give us pause for reflection, particularly when some early warning signs about AI are clearly evident. 

When AI whistleblower, Timnit Gebru, first started in AI research, she lamented the lack of cultural and gender diversity amongst developers. Things have improved, no doubt, but cultural and social bias remain significant problems to be addressed.

Flat-footed prose

Much lauded creative possibilities of generative AI are still needing development, and also come with serious ethical questions. Margaret Atwood recently lamented the lack of creative artistry of outputs based on her own works, concluding that its “flat-footed prose was the opposite of effective storytelling”. 

Worse, she argued, was that the texts used to train these models were not even purchased by the company, instead relying on versions scraped – stolen – from the internet. That, in turn, meant any royalty payments she might otherwise have earned were withheld. Australian authors have similarly expressed their frustration. Eking out an existence as an author is challenging enough without pirated works further stealing from these vital cultural voices.

We seem to have a larger challenge, too, buried deep in little discussed PISA data. Much of the focus on PISA is about test results.

Sobering results

But here’s what is in Volume III : students’ perceptions about bigger existential questions on the meaning of life, purpose, and satisfaction. The results, all of which are below the OECD average, are sobering:

  • 37% of students disagreed or strongly disagreed that “my life has meaning and purpose”;
  • 42% of students disagreed or strongly disagreed that “I have discovered a satisfactory meaning in life”;
  • 36% of students disagreed or strongly disagreed that “I have a clear sense of what gives meaning to my life”.

And this data was collected before the traumas of Black Summer in 2019 and COVID-19. There is much anticipation about what story the more recent round of PISA data collection will tell.

Based on this data, we clearly have much more work to do on our second national educational goal to develop confident and creative individuals who “have a sense of self-worth, self-awareness and personal identity that enables them to manage their emotional, mental, cultural, spiritual and physical wellbeing”. 

What can AI do in pursuit of these goals?

Much of the conversation about AI has been focused on the first part of the first national educational goal – excellence. How can AI be used to improve student learning? How can AI reshape teaching and assessment? More remains to be done on how AI can address the second part – equity.

These concerns are echoed by UNESCO in its recent Global Education Monitoring Report. The opportunities afforded by AI raise new questions about what it means to be educated. Technology is the tool, not the goal, argues the report. AI is to be in the service of developing “learners’ responsibility, empathy, moral compass, creativity and collaboration”.

AI will no doubt bring new possibilities and efficiencies into education, and to that end should be embraced. At the same time, a better test for its value might be that posed recently by Gert Biesta, that we must not:

lose sight of the fact that children and young people are human beings who face the challenge of living their own life, and of trying to live it well.

Attraction to the new, the shiny, the ephemeral, the how, is to be tempered by more fundamental questions of why. Keeping this central to the conversation might prevent us from realising Arendt’s prophecy that our age may exhibit “the deadliest, most sterile passivity history has ever known”.

Dr Paul Kidson is a senior lecturer in Educational Leadership at the Australian Catholic University. Prior to becoming an academic in 2017, he was a school principal for over 11 years. His teaching and research explore how systems and policies govern the work of school leaders, as well as how school leaders develop and sustain their personal leadership story. He previously wrote about artificial intelligence for EduResearch Matters with Sarah Jefferson and Leon Furze here.

PhD

Want to do a PhD now? Here’s what you should know

PhD education, PhD work, , , , , , , ,

Research in schools is messy. Things change fast and decisions need to be made on the fly. As PhD students doing research in schools, we (Kate and Matt) learned that challenges quickly arise and that tough decisions need to be made.

Our PhD research took place in vastly different contexts. Kate went to Zimbabwe to research the proliferation of philanthropic edu-tourism, and Matt explored differences in the teaching of drama and maths at a school in a regional town in NSW. Despite these “worlds-away” classrooms, we experienced similar challenges and discovered a gap in the literature on education fieldwork for postgrad students.  

That’s what our new paper explores,and from that we have four key lessons for PhD students. 

Four key lessons

We started our PhDs by ‘going with the flow’ of doctoral study. This meant we designed our research with the support of our supervisors. We presented our research plans to a panel of academics. We gained ethics approvals to conduct our studies. We undertook recruitment procedures. We went into ‘the field’ to collect data at schools. Then the flow changed. 

Our paper explains how this early ‘flow’ became more like ‘rapids’ (Lonergan & Cumming, 2017) as we undertook classroom-based research in Australia and Zimbabwe.  

In our research, we faced challenges and had to act in the moment. One such moment was when the classroom teacher left the classroom Kate was observing. What do you do? If you leave the room, where do you go? If you choose to stay, how long do you wait for them to return? If the class begins to misbehave, do you step into a teacher role or do you stay silent? If, and how, do you have a discussion with the teacher and ask them not to do this in the future?  

Someone’s missing

In another example, the teachers participating in Matt’s study were both absent from school but failed to tell him beforehand. This encounter resulted in wasted time travelling to and from the school. It also highlighted that research involves adaptive responses and planning on-the-go.  

Together, our reflections throughout the paper shed light on some of the emotional challenges during fieldwork. Even though one of us was geographically close and the other was far away from our supervisors, we were both unable to access their knowledge in the moments of shifting plans.  

Four key lessons

Here are four key lessons we wish we knew before starting fieldwork: 

  1. Communication is key. Having clear expectations and conversations about the research with the school community is integral to the success of the research. Do not assume that everyone in the school community will understand the intricacies of your study – the reality is this is an ongoing part of the process.  
  2. Developing rapport with research participants is crucial. While it is important to ‘give back’ in research and avoid disruptions to schools, it is equally important to be on the same page with participants about your role/s within the research. 
  3. Plan for a range of different scenarios, be open to how you might negotiate them as they unfold. Anticipating changes to your research plan may help you cope when these changes happen and allow you to know which components of your research plan you are willing to change or remove.  
  4. Keep a diary. Your field notes are hugely valuable when it comes to writing up and reflecting on your research. And a daily diary reminds you of all the things you’ve achieved (big and little) when the going gets tough. 

Continued conversation

We hope that others find these key lessons useful in thinking more broadly about their data collection plans. We are also mindful doctoral students have a range of resources at their fingertips when preparing for fieldwork that should not be overlooked. PhD supervisors are vital in the learning and development of doctoral students. Methods textbooks abound. And, there is a range of very insightful blogs, such as The Thesis Whisperer and Patter. Our research brings attention to these resources and the need for continued conversations about fieldwork.  

Kathleen Smithers is a lecturer in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University, Australia. Kathleen has worked across a number of projects with a focus on the sociology of education and higher education. Her doctoral thesis investigated developmentourism in schools in Zimbabwe.

Matthew Harper is a PhD candidate and research assistant across a range of projects at the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. His doctoral thesis compares teaching practice and the student experience in high school mathematics and drama.

How to say gay: what should happen in Australia

LBBTQIA+ students, LBBTQIA+ students,, , , ,

The recent resurgence in anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment promoted by far-right conservatism poses a threat to the safety and mental health of LGBTQIA+ people, and particularly LGBTQIA+ students. LGBTQIA+ rights and visibility have improved substantially in many nations around the globe since the 1990s but there is now a backlash.

And our research shows, young LGBTQIA+ people are at significantly greater risk of absenteeism from school because they feel unsafe in their educational environment, in part due to a lack of visibility and gender-affirming actions.

The most stark example of this concerted effort to push LGBTQIA+ identities back into the closet and out of public discourse is Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws, which restrict the teaching of gender and sexuality in Florida schools. 

This was later compounded by the Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E) Act, which allows parents to oppose the inclusion of books in school libraries and curricula. 

So far, just 11 parents have been responsible for more than 600 of the 1000+ complaints about books in the 2021/22 school year, many on the basis of references to gender and sexuality. This far-right conservatism also underpinned the repeal of Roe v Wade,restricting everyone from accessing reproductive health care and impacting their bodily autonomy.

Think it can’t happen in Australia?

Anti-trans activist Posey Parker found an audience for her ideas in her visit to Melbourne, with neo-Nazis present in support. The closure of the Safe Schools program, which offered LGBTQIA+ gender and sexuality education is another example of the general reduction in support for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in schools. The legislative landscape in Australia has not suffered the same reversals as the United States, with anti-discrimination legislation at both a state and federal level offering protection.

This finds its way into schools through state government requirements that schools provide a safe and inclusive learning environment. Our recent research reveals this is not consistently enacted in school policy. As we said earlier, our research shows  LGBTQIA+ students are at significantly greater risk of absenteeism from school.In our findings, the disconnect between policy and practice was clear. In 2021, the Queensland Department of Education developed the Diversity Policy to reflect legislation to support, affirm and protect LGBTIQA+ students. 

But when we looked at one Queensland school region during our research, only four out of thirty-six state secondary schools had an LGBTQIA+ specific inclusion policy that was publicly available to LGBTQIA+ students and their families. 

What we found in Australia

And if you were looking to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for LGBTQIA+ voice and representation, it’s clear LGBTIQA+ people and their experiences are invisible in statements regarding diversity and in the Australian Curriculum itself. 

On a separate site, intended to enhance the Australian Health and Physical Education Curriculum, schools are encouraged to use the materials from the Queensland Government’s Respectful Relationships Hub. Here, students may have one lesson during years P-12 on the human rights of all diverse peoples, with LGBTIQA+ people briefly mentioned, in Year 11. Just one lesson in 13 years. Just one.

Our research showed the devasting impact upon mental health, wellbeing, and longitudinal outcomes for LGBTIQA+ people when not supported through policy, inclusion, visibility and representation in schools. The Writing Themselves In surveys conducted by La Trobe University, spanning from 1998 to 2021 consistently demonstrate most LGBTQIA+ youth experience discrimination, lack of affirmation and feelings of unsafety while at secondary school.

Our scoping review of literature regarding the experiences of LGBTIQA+ youth in Australia identified six ways to include, affirm and protect LGBTIQA+ students in schools. We also found the literature  unanimously showed the benefit of LGBTQIA+ specific inclusion and anti-bullying policies and LGBTQIA+ representation in the curriculum. But Queensland school policy does not consistently include LGBTQIA+ students, and some actively stymie gender-expression through restrictive uniform policy. 

Include, affirm, protect

The six key themes identified in inclusive school environments were: 

  • schools having LGBTIQA+ specific inclusion policies 
  •  LGBTIQA+ specific anti-bullying and harassment policies
  •  an inclusive curriculum that acknowledges and affirms LGBTQIA+ identities and relationships in both general and sex education classes.  
  • Beyond policy, the creation of affirming school structures such as choice in uniform and toileting facilities,
  •  The creation of LGBTQIA+ groups and spaces
  •  staff professional development to further support these school structures were also identified as strong supports for LGBTQIA+ youth. 

In much of the literature reviewed, there was an overarching finding – that a combination of these strategies could be adopted to develop a whole of school approach to LGBTQIA+ inclusion.As our research and the findings of others suggest, there is work still to be done to ensure the physical and psychological safety of LGBTQIA+ young people in schools. Through a combination of policy reform, changes to school structures and the development of a more representative curriculum, schools can achieve meaningful change. For the benefit of LGBTQIA+ people the disconnection between Australian law, Australian school policy and individual schools’ application of these laws and policies must be amended.

Kahlia Seeley is a Guidance Officer with the Department of Education, Queensland. She holds a Masters in Education from University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Her interest in research, policy and practice is in the areas of wellbeing, inclusion and behaviour support for young people. You can find her on Instagram or on LinkedIn

Alison Bedford is a senior lecturer in history curriculum and pedagogy. She provides supervision to students undertaking systematic and scoping literature reviews and is interested in the methods of discourse analysis in her own work. You can find her on LinkedIn and Threads.

Second year teachers: Now I know what I don’t know

teacher mentors, teacher retention, teachers mentoring teachers, , , ,

The National Teacher Workforce Action Plan offers ways to deal with current teacher shortages across Australia, with a conspicuous focus on rapidly attracting more teachers to the profession and ensuring that they receive support and mentoring as they transition into their first year of teaching.  

However, when we interviewed a small group of early career teachers in their second year of teaching and their mentors, we found these second-year teachers are in just as much need of mentoring as their first-year teacher colleagues. 

This raises significant concerns. Schools and systems focus their attention and funding on formal and intentional mentoring for the first year of teaching, believing that by the second year, teachers have found their way in many respects and are not in need of formal mentoring opportunities. 

Will recommendations for supporting early career teachers through mentoring and induction in the  National Teacher Workforce Action Plan just continue to focus on teachers as they initially transition into the profession? Will ongoing mentoring needs of teachers as they progress to the second year of their careers continue to be neglected?

We need a well-considered approach to mentoring that acknowledges the ongoing yet evolving professional needs of teachers beyond the first year of teaching. Without that, we risk enticing more teachers to the profession only to lose them when they don’t get adequate support.

Schools face challenges (time, funding) in providing extended mentoring support.

But there is another challenge – understanding what it is that second-year teachers need from mentoring. Much of the research undertaken in the field of mentoring generally occurs with teachers in their first year of teaching or does not seek to differentiate between early career teachers across those first few years. 

In being more aware of what early career teachers in their second year of teaching need, and bring to the profession, a targeted approach can be implemented that could in fact save time and money and prevent the loss of teachers from the profession before they have even had a chance to shine. 

We collected data from 15 second-year early career teachers and their mentors in Brisbane Queensland, via a survey, field notes, and professional learning artifacts to find out what they saw as essential mentoring for teachers in their second year of teaching. Their insights serve as an important provocation for those involved in the development and delivery of mentoring programs for early career teachers. 

These second-year teachers explained that, 

While the first year is hard, the second year can be even harder because in first year, you don’t know what you don’t know, and you get this support. But by the second year, you start to realise what you don’t know and you start to see what you are doing wrong or haven’t been doing! 

These second-year teachers felt that at the very time they needed support to navigate this growing professional awareness and a clearer understanding of what they needed to learn and develop to become a stronger teacher, the mentoring support ground to a halt. 

       Yeah, and now [in my second year] I need more help but everyone expects me to know it as I’m no longer a first year.

They felt that this was despite more being expected of them as second-year teachers, including the huge workload involved in putting together a portfolio of their practice to move to full registration. These second-year teachers described this year of their careers as “make or break”. 

Our work showed that these second-year teachers toggle between still wanting explicit and specific support and advice to address immediate concerns and “solve problems” and wanting the opportunity to engage with a mentor to “explore”, and “consolidate” and “refine” their practice. They wanted to have equal ownership over the direction of mentoring conversations and saw themselves as fully capable of contributing their own ideas to mentoring conversations, while concurrently needing access to a mentor for specific guidance. 

Mentors seemed to be eager for the second-year teacher to take the lead in mentoring conversations and generally felt that second-year teacher mentoring should be less about addressing immediate concerns and fixing problems. They felt that second-year teachers should be “challenging” and “establishing” themselves, and “expanding their repertoire” of practice. 

Even though the early career teachers did not necessarily disagree, and indeed were eager to engage in mentoring that would support them “to try something new”, there was still an aspect of the mentoring that still seemed to be rooted in survival. Early career teaching does not stop being challenging at the end of the first year, and yet, teachers in their second year can easily fall through the cracks.  Schools and systems setting up and implementing mentoring programs need to consider beyond the first year of teaching and recognise it as both a time of ongoing challenge complicated by accreditation requirements, and pedagogical and professional exploration. Second-year teachers represent a unique group of teachers that unless nurtured in the ways that meet their needs, may end up among the growing numbers exiting the profession.

From left to right: Dr Ellen Larsen is a senior lecturer (Curriculum and Pedagogy) in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. She has had a long career as a classroom teacher, school leader, and mentor in state and independent schools and has developed and implemented research-based professional learning programs across Queensland with teachers at all career stages. With research interests in professional learning, early career educators, teacher identity, and educational policy, Ellen is committed to working with schools to develop quality mentoring programs in the contemporary teaching context. Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Dr Hoa Nguyen is an associate professor in the School of Education, specialising in teacher education/development, mentoring, and TESOL education. She co-leads the Teacher Education and Development Research Groupinthe School of Education at the University of New South Wales. She has experience teaching and training pre-service and in-service teachers in Asia and Australia. How works extensively with teachers to develop their capabilities as mentors and has a strong commitment and passion to develop teachers’ professional learning. You can find her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Dr Elizabeth Curtis is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. Elizabeth’s work and research with pre-service teacher education and beginning teachers includes professional experience, mentoring, philosophical inquiry, and values and care in education. Elizabeth has vast experience in not only teaching and researching but also in leading program innovation and change across early childhood, primary, and secondary contexts at two Australian universities.

Associate Professor Tony Loughland is deputy head of school (research) in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales. He is an experienced educator who likes to work with teachers to work with theory in ways that enhance practice. His research interests lie in teacher professional learning across the continuum from graduate to lead teacher.  He is currently leading projects on using AI for citizens’ informed participation in urban development, the provision of staffing for rural and remote areas in NSW, and Graduate Ready Schools. You can find him on LinkedIn.

how leaders run meetings

Leaders: Could we please just get this done quickly?

educational leadership, school leadership, , ,

Educators across all sectors are pressed for time. Here’s how we can manage one constant drain on our attention. Leaders: Make meetings meaningful.

How many meetings have you attended that you can truly say were a productive use of everyone’s time and achieved their purpose?

How many meetings have you run yourself that achieved their purpose? Would the attendees agree?

Most meetings follow a traditional format that hasn’t evolved with the modern workplace. But fear not, a few simple tweaks to your meeting style can lead to more productive gatherings.

Meeting frustrations for attendees 

You’ve probably heard these common frustrations about meetings:

  • “We didn’t need this meeting.”
  • “This could have been an email.”
  • “The decisions were already made.”
  • “Nothing will come of this.”
  • “This is so boring.”
  • “Why bother coming on time?”
  • “Why does it have to be scheduled now?”
  • “We’re just going over the same points.”
  • “Why don’t we just put it to a vote, then?”
  • “Won’t that person just pipe down?!”

Several of these issues can be resolved by asking:  Is a meeting really necessary?

Alternatives to meetings

Leaders should consider alternatives like delegation, mentoring, workshops, or one-on-one conversations with team members. The use of technology for asynchronous interaction such as focused email threads, chat programs, surveys, shared documents, rosters and graphic organisers can allow team members time to think and participate at a time of their choosing and to their desired extent of participation. 

Is the meeting happening just because it’s on the calendar? Some managers hold meetings simply because it’s the norm or because they find it easier than other forms of managing or delegating. However, a meeting should never be an end in itself. Meetings are not suited for disseminating large amounts of information or reporting without the opportunity for team discussion. The meeting must have a clear purpose and achieve its objectives.

The best meeting objectives are 

1. To generate ideas, 

2. To make a group decision, and 

3. to share sensitive or urgent information. 

Meeting frustrations for leaders

As a leader, you may have faced issues such as poorly allocated meeting places and times, directions to deliver someone else’s bad news or frustrations with attendees. 

Sluggish, unprepared, dominant, missing, or late attendees can make meeting discussions off-topic, irrelevant, or impossible! Perhaps the worst outcomes of such meetings are the a reversal of the decision afterward, a need to have another meeting, or the “real” meeting happening elsewhere.

Small changes for a big difference in meetings

First and foremost, it’s essential to recognize that a meeting belongs to the entire team, not just the leader or chair. The true measure of a meeting’s success lies in its outcomes, not in how smoothly it ran. It’s a democratic process that encourages free discussion, values diverse opinions, and ensures decisions are made thoughtfully. Encourage all team members to actively participate and discourage rushing to decisions or stifling opposing viewpoints. One major change to make is for the leader to abdicate from the Chair position..

Leaders, sit back and watch

The role of the chair is critical in maintaining an efficient meeting. While chairs hold authority, they should refrain from advocating a particular interest. Their objective should be impartial management of time and speakers, ensuring  the meeting stays on course. The chair must encourage free discussion while maintaining control, using various cues such as tone, questions, and body language.

When it comes to choosing a chair, it’s important to find someone who can manage the meeting objectively and encourage open discussion. The chair shouldn’t be overly involved in decision-making or introduce decisions that have already been made. Sitting back while the team discusses an issue allows the leader to come through at the end and make the decision, rather than informing the team of a decision already made, or asking for approval of their idea, which can make questions and ideas from the team seem like criticism.

And don’t be secretary either!

Ideally, the leader should not be chair, or secretary. Minutes should capture the essence of the team discussion, objectively recording who said what, not just the final decisions. Technology can aid in this process, allowing attendees to follow the flow of conversation with projector or whiteboard notes. This can also help quell the repetition of arguments, especially from the same person. Use action items to track decisions made and to follow up previous meetings’ items.

The power of a well-structured agenda

Agenda items are best framed as questions, with each having a designated time estimate in minutes, not clock time. Start with important items that require brainstorming or debate, and save routine matters for the end, or via email. Apply time limits for speakers, announced by the chair or displayed on a screen or clock, to keep speaking time fair and focused. Encourage a culture of meeting preparation by getting straight to the issue and not repeating information that was required reading.

A meeting agenda should establish context, provide a stimulus, allow interaction and idea-sharing, produce tangible outcomes, measure accountability against objectives, and encourage reflection and action steps.

Final tips

To best generate ideas and to make a decision as a group, it is crucial to create an environment where alternatives can be raised and discussed with the right thinking frame and time before criticism is allowed. Using De Bono’s thinking hats, even if informally through a competent meeting Chair, will encourage the team to genuinely contribute. Establishing criteria before a decision is made should help focus contributions to the issue at hand rather than personal standpoints. Asking one or more members of the team to adopt a Devil’s Advocate position is an equally valuable initiative which prevents groupthink. 

Incorporate these strategies, and your meetings can become a more productive use of your team’s time, knowledge and ideas. Next time you gather your team, consider these best practices to make your meetings more efficient and effective.

Dr Hugh Gundlach is a lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne. He recently presented this content at the ACEL National Conference in Brisbane as one of the 2023 ACEL New Voices in Educational Leadership Research. He likes meetings that stay on topic, produce outcomes, run to time, and that have chocolate biscuits.

Remnant of Aboriginal flag

Why spectacular slogans and perfect pop ditties will never work

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, teaching history, , ,

The phenomenon of moral politicking around an issue rather than a political party has been a key part of my research over the last five years. That’s been the case in many things to do with education – and education policy. Our social relationships now have a strong influence on our reality. Politics no longer works the way it did back in 1967.  Let’s look at what happened on the weekend as we voted on the Voice referendum.

On Saturday the No Vote for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament ( commonly called the Voice referendum) won in a landslide. It was a referendum clean sweep. All of the States and more than half the population voted No. There have been many over the weekend who have been deconstructing why. What did the Yes campaign do wrong? Whether there should have been a constitutional convention to avoid spending billions on yet another unsuccessful referendum. Whether there were truth or lies. 

We can analyse the should and the shouldn’ts for days. But in the end, voting on the Voice referendum should never have been the foundational mechanism for having a much needed national discussion about something so important. Maybe once it was. Maybe. But no longer. 

A national discussion

As I said, politics no longer works the way it did back in 1967. 

Back in the 1960s politics had the veneer of a powerful institution that could morally progress the nation. And I say veneer because it’s not like misinformation and politicians behaving badly didn’t exist back then. They absolutely did. But the social agreement was that the political system was represented as something that could be moral. Or at least held to account when it wasn’t. 

Today morality is politicised. In other words, the public are encouraged to gather around an idea because it is moral, not because a political party is moral. We saw this in the distribution of No and Yes votes in the Voice referendum. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) were campaigning for the Yes vote but traditional ALP seats resoundingly voted No across the country. 

Moral politicking around issues rather than  political parties has been a key part of my research findings since 2018. I’ve published a couple of times about it recently with my colleagues (here and here). We discuss how education issues are used as moral barometers in election campaigns and how education publics now tend to align themselves with a moral position attached to an education policy. An earlier finding showed that people are also more likely to make decisions that agree with their friends and family. 

Moral politicking

This is because our social relationships have a strong influence on our morality. 

The standard response to this phenomenon is ‘media literacy’ or ‘do your research’ or ‘google it’. Be critically literate. This is a great response and absolutely what should happen in the classrooms, in teaching reading and responsible authorship/creation. 

But, when morality is politicised, being critically informed as a moral position is simply not working. We should know that by now. Morality polarises. You can’t teach someone away from the opposite pole with snappy slogans, comedy and clever use of pop songs. They just make your pole feel good (and shocked when you lose). The most successful political actors (politicians/lobbyists etc) today are those who know that spreading misinformation is the best way to run interference – especially on a campaign so deeply concerned with telling the truth. And they are really, really good at it. 

Conservative political actors

These actors tend to be conservative. Conservative political actors, who are intent on wedging issues, do not care whether their descriptions are accurate or not. Indeed their whole purpose is to sow confusion and muddy the water to the point where people have no choice but to vote with their feelings. Meanwhile progressive political actors interested in accuracy, media literacy and fact checking spend all their energy correcting the misinformation or getting frustrated about people not researching. Finding the positive emotional register in “gotchas” when they evidence a flaw. This is a very normal reaction to misleading and inaccurate information. But while this critical energy is spent correcting information, no campaigning for change is happening. Indeed more often than not the conservative campaign is amplified, especially if these discussions are occurring in the media.

So what do we do about it? I’m certainly not advocating for less fact checking or critical media literacy. But we need to face the reality of the situation and consider where critical literacy fits in these times when clever campaigners don’t care if their facts are wrong and critiquing amplifies untruths. 

History and Geography’s poor cousin

It’s not just that people don’t understand how our political systems work that’s a problem, it’s that those who do know are concerning themselves with a system that no longer works the way it used to. Maybe Civics and Citizenship education needs amplifying. The poor cousin to History and Geography has been continuously overlooked in an education landscape dominated by literacy and numeracy. 

We have to have a hard conversation about how we teach people to deal with politics and campaigning texts in this political environment and it has to include the following. 

Less clamouring for the repair of a liberal-constitutional institution and its norms – something that no longer cares about truth. Find a way to make space for those who are grassroots campaigning because they are listening to people. Listening is how you reach people who vote with their family, friends and neighbours. 

Less bemoaning a crisis of democracy because people voted against repairing the Constitution. The logic is that their vote is not as valuable as your vote. A democratic crisis actually does exist in that slippery slope. That worries this ex-Citizenship Education teacher just as much as “If you don’t know, vote No” slogans. 

After the Voice referendum

Understand that we are in a significant political moment for Australia in 2023. We cannot connect this experience of the Voice referendum to Brexit or Trump or the 2022 Federal election. We cannot draw comparisons to the past when literacy became a policy object and critical literacy experienced a meteoric rise, full of hope for a well informed citizenry. Looking elsewhere is what we always do to make sense of unprecedented moments in our lives. We look back to work out what to do. But, according to Anthony Giddens, looking back for answers has always been what keeps conservative ideas in power. 

Looking away stops us looking our own uncomfortable politics square in the face. We saw racism and prejudice over the campaign. That needs dealing with immediately. We are not going to learn how to deal with our own future if we are looking to England, Europe or the US. Instead, we have to squarely look at our own situation and realise the answers are here already if we know where to listen. We also have to realise that a democracy means that ideas we find morally objectionable may gain traction and no amount of facts and critical thought will stop that happening. But moral polarisation will stop us talking and listening. 

Good can always be found and brought to the surface. That is the essence of politics. 

For instance, whether you voted Yes or No, the Voice referendum has repoliticised challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. The past 40 years of neoliberal government has systematically privatised, proceduralised and neutralised the way issues like deaths in custody, welfare and healthcare, youth incarceration, mental health, access to food and water, access to education and addressing the literacy gap are dealt with in Australia. We know about it. It’s been campaigned about by both sides for 12 months. We know something needs to be done about it. Something with teeth.

Privatised, proceduralised, neutralised

That’s a good thing. That’s a grassroots thing. That’s a democratic thing. And educators who are well-versed in civics and citizenship, have inquiring minds, and listen, really listen, are going to be critical in moving forward. 

Dr Naomi Barnes is a network analyst and theorist at Queensland University of Technology. She is interested in how ideas influence education policy. She is a senior lecturer in literacy teaching and has worked for Education Queensland as a senior writer and has worked as a secondary English, history and geography teacher in government, Catholic and independent schools.

Roman Empire statue

Think about the awesome Roman Empire every day? Excellent. Here’s what else to do

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It’s not (ancient) history. A viral post on TikTok revealed we think about ancient history all the time, even now. But it’s how we think about it that matters. That’s why what students do when they bring Ötzi, The Iceman, out of the ice, that really matters.

Our aim is to develop historical thinking with high school history students.

If students think history is only about dates and battles, then they are not fully appreciating the purpose of studying history. What is not necessarily obvious to students is that they need to use concrete details for the purpose of saying something more generalised about them. Each time they write about an artefact, historical event or figure, that content is an opportunity to display their historical thinking.

In writing about Ancient History, the NSW syllabus says students must be able to shift from concrete particulars to more abstract historical concepts. This means, for example, getting Ötzi, The Iceman, out of the ice. In writing about the details of how Ötzi was discovered and preserved, students need to connect to recurrent processes and cultural practices that are not only about Ötzi.

To examine how students can successfully connect details with more abstract concepts, our research https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.106 investigated what happened when students wrote about Ancient History under timed practice exam conditions. We were part of an ARC funded research project and collected data from schools, including one with a lower Index of Community Socio-educational Advantage (ICSEA) in Western Sydney. In this school, a teacher was motivated to join the study because she felt her students could express their historical knowledge in classroom discussions but struggled to move beyond description in their writing. 

Here’s an example from our data set (original wording from students). It is a response to the short-answer exam question of: How are human remains preserved?

Student one
If the weather is either freezing cold or hot and dry, bacteria cannot survive and the body doesn’t decompose. An example of a body found in the freezing cold is the Iceman who was found in the Alps.

Here the student includes contextual details about environmental conditions, but they are not yet repackaging this knowledge in a more abstract form. 

In the next example, a student demonstrates better control of relating concrete details to more abstract concepts: 


Student two
Human remains can either be preserved by natural or artificial process of mummification. For a body to decompose, bacteria must be present in order for the decaying process to occur. Certain conditions may disallow bacteria to use a human body as host and as a result, a preserved human remain is left.

Naturally mummified bacteria occur by accident and are dependent on the conditions of the environment of which the body lies. An example is the iceman who was frozen in ice, those frozen are not suitable for bacteria to flourish and as a result the body was preserved.

Artificial mummification, or embalming was for such reasons like religion and an example are the ancient eqyptian mummies where the body was preserved with chemicals for the “after life” and religious sacrificial purposes.

Student One’s text about Ötzi was descriptive – i.e. it stayed stuck in the ice. Student Two foregrounds abstract processes, such as mummification. They then connect a concrete example (the iceman) to this process. From the perspective of an examiner, Student Two is more successfully demonstrating historical thinking because they are not only describing concrete evidence, but highlighting its relevance and significance beyond the context in which it was found.

One way to understand why this more elaborate response would be awarded a much higher grade in Ancient History is to examine student texts with tools for analysing English texts. In our project, we used a theory from within the sociology of education, called Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). This theory, developed by Professor Karl Maton at the University of Sydney, is about understanding the bases of achievement in social practices. This includes theorising differences in what kind of knowledge is seen as legitimate, how it is learned and who is valued as an appropriate authority. 

The part of this theory that we used involves the concept known as semantic gravity. When analysing student writing, semantic gravity can be used to compare and contrast how tied to context something is. For example, writing about the details of the arrowhead found in Ötzi, the Iceman has relatively strong semantic gravity as it discusses a specific artefact in a specific setting. In contrast, writing about the process of natural mummification has weaker semantic gravity as it is not bound to one artefact or setting but rather discussed in general terms. When analysing student writing, we used the convention of (SG+) and (SG-) for stronger and weaker semantic gravity. 

As we analysed student texts, we plotted the relative strength of semantic gravity as it changes throughout a text. This creates what is known as a semantic profile. Points at the top of the semantic profile represent more abstract and generalised meanings, whereas points at the bottom represent meanings that are more strongly tied to context. Here’s an example from Student 2’s successful text.  


Figure 1: Plotting a semantic profile from an exam response

What this semantic profile tells us is that students need to frequently shift between stronger and weaker context dependence. This kind of movement has been described as semantic waving, as visualised in Figure 1. Writing in waves enables students to connect concrete evidence clearly to more abstract historical concepts. For writing about mummification in Egypt, semantic waving enables students to not just describe fragments of physical evidence, but say something about its significance. Put another way, physical evidence becomes a stepping stone for elaborating on non-physical concepts, such as recurrent processes or religious beliefs and practices. This kind of connection is crucial because it provides a way to connect fragments of evidence to something more abstract. (See our article for precise categorisation of how context dependence may shift in relative strength from one word or group of words to another).

How students connect physical evidence to non-physical and more abstract concepts is also evident in how they deal with time. While they of course need to situate physical evidence in the past (e.g., was frozen), they also need to ‘get up and out’ of that single example and context. One option is to relate physical evidence to a potential or possible occurrence which is relevant to multiple artefacts and events  (e.g., …can be preserved…). Student Two clearly does this when connecting evidence to the recurrent processes of natural and artificial mummification. Controlling time in this way makes it easier to elaborate on the relevance and importance of the evidence. In LCT terms, these temporal choices contribute to widening the semantic range of a text. (See our article for precise categorisation of how context dependence may shift in relative strength from one clause to another).

The kind of analysis that we have briefly shared here aims to illuminate the ‘rules of the game’. If, for high achievement, the ‘rules of the game’ include saying something non-physical about physical evidence, and also relating physical evidence to recurrent processes and cultural practices, then we argue that this can and should be taught. It can be taught to students so that they know how to display more abstract reasoning and thinking in their writing, and it can be the focus of discussion and professional learning for teachers. 


Controlling context dependence has implications for subjects other than Ancient History and for further education. In Modern History, students might study World War One to learn how complex social forces may contribute to a situation in which international diplomacy breaks down and a war breaks out. In English, students might study poems of Wilfred Owen to learn how specific techniques such as alliteration, onomatopoeia and personification (among others) are used to convey meanings infused with emotion. In physics, students might race toy cars down ramps to learn about forces and motion. In each case, relative shifts in context dependence are essential to exploring and writing about something broader in the world or in the realm of human experience.

This ability to manage abstraction is also critical at the tertiary level, where students must be able to use all kinds of evidence, including their own experiences and research findings, to make knowledge claims in a wide range of writing tasks. It therefore seems likely that better supporting students to use evidence, in subjects like Ancient History, could provide a robust foundation for controlling degrees of context dependence in their future tertiary studies.

Lucy Macnaught, senior lecturer and learning advisor, Learning and Academic Engagement team within the AUT Library, collaborates with the Graduate Research School and faculty to integrate academic literacies in programs. Her research draws on theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to investigate what students are expected to create. She designs teaching making these expectations clear.  Twitter @lucy_macnaught and LinkedIn

Erika Matruglio, senior lecturer, School of Education, University of Wollongong, draws on theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory, and on Design Based Research, to research literacy practices in schooling. She has published on the nature of classroom discourse, conditions which enable cumulative knowledge building, disciplinarity and the demands of writing in the disciplines. Twitter @Lingitude and LinkedIn.

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How to lead the leaders

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In its infancy, the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) was a male-centric organisation. At its 50th anniversary, it showed us how far it had come.

It was significant that the opening of the 50-year ACEL celebration represented a major transformation of past ACEL membership to its current iteration, transformed by a group of influential women in the early 70s and now represents the diverse faces of educational leadership in 2023. 

One of the significant features of the 2023 ACEL conference was powerful women in leadership within the organisation. Barbara Watterston (ACEL CEO) opened the conference with great passion and insight, throwing the spotlight on the quality of educational leadership and the agility and resilience of educational leaders. Briony Scott (ACEL President) made the most remarkable concluding speech that tied all elements of the conference together in an eloquent and positive manner. She challenged the 600 delegates to listen to multiple voices and build collaborative and inclusive relationships within the community.

 These ACEL leaders were joined by Stacie Hansel (Dep DG Qld) who officially opened the conference, Sarah Kanowski – the effervescent host and maestro who wove the key elements together throughout the conference, Dr Sue Pillans, who managed to encapsulate and illustrate key learnings from the conference, and the distinguished Viviane Robinson (Uni Auckland) who started the conference with virtuous educational leadership- doing the right things the right way. 

Emeritus Professors Frank Crowther and Brian Caldwell, two of the founders and original members of ACEL were celebrated for their 50 years of service. They highlighted the role ACEL played in leading educational change such as women in leadership in the history of ACEL through the Commemorative Monograph (1973-2023). The Monograph was framed in five parts, writing four sections himself and the final contribution by Brian Caldwell: Auspicious beginnings; Years of Renovation, Revolution and Unification; The Blossoming of Education Leadership Scholarship; Ahead of the Game in a Tumultuous World; the Future of ACEL. Frank talked about connections and described how the DNA of ACEL (originally the Australian Council for Educational Administrators) has shaped, is shaping, and will shape Australian education. The 2023 theme was celebrated through presentations, demonstrating the evolution of ideas and practices in educational leadership rooted in the DNA described by Frank Crowther. The monograph reflects on the journey of ACEL and highlights key events and dedicated service since the inception. It was a fitting backdrop to the theme of the 2023 National Conference, Learning from the Past, Leading for the Future, which raised the following ideas.

‘Working with’ not ‘working for’

Inspiring attendees to look to the future, presentations explored the opportunities that arise when we shift our mindsets to ‘working with’ rather than ‘working for’ groups in education. Marnee’s William Walker oration focused on the value of codesign in working with Aboriginal communities.

The panel discussion involving Kristen Douglas and Beth O’Brien highlighted the importance of working with people to remove the barriers that can inhibit success in education and work. The discussion represented a powerful shift in inclusive education, about working alongside people to showcase their strengths and support their needs.

Focusing on the wellbeing of all

We were reminded of the importance of considering the wellbeing of all members of the school community, including teachers and leaders. We know that educational leaders are often inclined to worry about the wellbeing of their students and their staff before themselves. The analogy of the airplane oxygen mask came to mind for participants with the importance of leaders ‘fitting their own masks first’ in order to be able to help others. 

The theme of ensuring leaders are healthy and well, so that they can best serve their schools, was evident in Paul Kidson’s concurrent session. Paul shared evidence from the 11 years of the ACU Principal Health and Wellbeing survey and made connections to strong evidence from TALIS research that demonstrated a positive relationship between teacher and principal job satisfaction and student achievement. With the current need to focus on teacher retention in Australian schools, as was raised in the research from Mark McCrindle and Fiona Longmuir, the conference highlighted a need to reframe the ways in which we support staff wellbeing. While educators will always care about the wellbeing and learning of students, perhaps a slight shift in focus to ensure those in the profession have their own ‘masks’ well secured first would ultimately benefit students the most?  

Dealing with the ‘problem’

So much of the current talk about education takes a deficit discourse. Within the media and the policy arena, we constantly hear about the failings of students, teachers, educational leaders, schools and initial teacher educators. Discussions at the ACEL conference, however, were a little more proactive. Kristen Douglas and Penny Brown, among others, shifted the conversation forward, calling on educators and policymakers to stop focusing on the people and pay more attention to problems within the system. 

The call to refocus our attention was 

 to the ‘Imagination declaration’, in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people made a statement to the Prime Minister and education ministers describing their aspirations for the future:

We are not the problem, we are the solution. 

We don’t want to be boxed.

We don’t want ceilings.

We want freedom to be whatever a human mind can dream. (Imagination Declaration, 2019)

Connections beyond the classroom

Listening is fundamental to the curious mindset of educational leaders that was advocated for by Pasi Sahlberg. Fiona Longmuir’s Spotlight session reminded us that listening to teachers’ experiences in order to understand how to best support them is integral to retaining them in the current workforce shortages. 

The conference provoked discussions about listening to one another, being curious and celebrating the strengths of educators. In his keynote, Mark McCrindle described significant disruptive features that already exist in schools that require new ways of thinking, challenging us to adopt creative strategies for adapting to change.

As one of the final speakers at the conference, Luke Springer critiqued the current ‘doom and gloom’ discourse of teachers and school education and demonstrated the importance of positive representations of schools. His social media posts have helped him to engage with students, parents, teachers, system leaders and the international community, spreading new narratives about the joys of teaching.

Participants were left with a challenge to make a difference, by being inclusive and responsive, by listening and connecting to improve educational leadership, now, and into the future.  

From left to right: Jess Harris is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle. Her research is focused on the leadership and development of teachers and teaching within schools and through initial teacher education.

Fiona Longmuir lectures in educational leadership at Monash University and has over 20 years’ experience as a researcher and practising school leader.Her research interests include intersections between educational leadership and educational change with a particular focus on student voice and agency. Susan Ledger is a professor and dean of education at the University of Newcastle. She researches education policy, practices and issues related to teaching and preparing to teach in diverse contexts: international, rural, remote, multi-lingual, special needs and difficult to staff.

Special schools: should they be phased out?

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Even before the release of the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, the differing views on segregated settings for people with disability in education received media attention. Soon the debate was framed around the closing of special schools. Acknowledging the calls for a faster phase-out, I focus on the first step of the proposal to phase out special settings. I see a need to better understand special/segregated settings in the process of phasing them out. 

Is change possible? 

For a long time, Australian governments have supported a dual system of education for students with disability. Hence, changing course won’t be a natural reflex but an act of vision. Australia has invested in providing support for the nearly one million school students (just over one-fifth of total enrolment) receiving disability adjustments (ACARA) across all settings. This is now a historical opportunity to prioritise inclusive equality towards a unified system for all. 

The Commission was tasked to identify “what should be done to promote a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation”. It operated within a Human Rights approach informed at international level by the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). 

The CRPD’s understanding of equality moves beyond formal equality, i.e., treating everybody the same. It promotes substantive equality, i.e., the provision of different treatment such as adjustments for achieving equitable outcomes. It also introduces inclusive equality, which looks to reshape the way society is structured. A human rights approach requires a shift of deep-seated beliefs, attitudes, practices, and responses to disability.

What are the divergent positions?

The Commissioners themselves expressed divergent views on segregated settings for people with disability in education, housing and employment. But all Commissioners agreed that the current education system needs to be transformed to become more inclusive. They differ on the role and future of educational segregated settings.

Phasing out of special/segregated settings. Three Commissioners with lived experience of disability – Bennet, Galbally and McEwin – recommend phasing-out and ending special/segregated education over 28 years. They perceive such settings as incompatible with an inclusive society and linked to abuse and low educational, social and employment outcomes.

Maintaining of ‘non-mainstream’ settings, increasing their proximity and interactions with mainstream settings. The Chair, Sackville, and Commissioners Mason and Ryan prefer the use of the ‘non-mainstream settings’ term. They perceive them as compatible with an inclusive education system when the choice to attend is ‘free’, and interactions between students with and without disability are cultivated. They emphasise the provision of such settings for ‘students with complex support needs’ and prioritise ‘parental choice’.

What would happen if the phasing out of special/segregated settings starts next year?

The proposal for phasing out special settings includes six phases:

  • Phase 1: 2024-2025: Agreement to a national inclusive education roadmap
  • Phase 2: 2026-2027: Preparation for implementation
  • Phase 3: 2027-2035: Transformation of mainstream education
  • Phase 4: 2032: No new enrolments of children with disability in special/segregated schools
  • Phase 5: 2041: No new placements of children with disability in special/segregated units or classes
  • Phase 6: 2051: By the end of 2051, all students previously in special/segregated schools have finished their education.

The central aim of the proposal is to transform mainstream education. For existing segregated settings, changes will take place in later phases. But phase 1 requires “no new special/segregated schools being built, or new special/segregated classes or units being included within schools replacing education in a mainstream classroom from 2025.” 

This will halt the trend of growth in segregated settings provision, re-allocating resources and planning priorities.

Special schools

A conversation around special schools is needed. 

There were just over 50,000 students attending special schools in 2021. Nearly 47000 were funded for having a disability under the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The report defines these special schools as“schools exclusively or primarily enrolling children and young people with complex support needs”. The number of schools  increased  from 414 in 2010 to 520 in 2022 – an increase of 26 per cent. And that increase is predominantly in independent schools (from 55 to 132, 140% increase), Catholic School system (additional 20 schools, 74% increase) and nine schools in the government sector (2.7% increase).

The report doesn’t distinguish

The report doesn’t explicitly distinguish between two types of ‘special schools’ as per the Australian Education Act 2013: 

–        Special Schools catering exclusively for students with disability and for which a diagnosis of disability is an enrolment condition

–        Special Assistance Schools which cater for students with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties.

The ABS and ACARA data used in the report record most (but not all) ‘Special Assistance Schools’ under ‘special schools’. Special assistance schools, also called flexi schools or non-mainstream alternative schools, cater for students who have experienced substantial disengagement from mainstream education. A recent report by Independent Schools Australia reported that in a large proportion of Independent special assistance schools either most or all of the young people enrolled have a disability funded under NCCD. The overwhelming majority of new special schools are special assistance schools with more planned for the near future.

The Royal Commission didn’t include a dedicated public hearing on special schools. There is work to be done to understand different types of special schools, who is attending them, pathways in and out of special schools, and what special schools offer to their students. This work isn’t about improving special schools (although it hopefully will achieve this while special schools are still in operation), but to inform the transformation of the education system.

Special classes in mainstream schools

Information around special/segregated provision in regular schools is even more limited. The Final report doesn’t include statistics by state/territories and sector but acknowledges evidence of increase in such provision across Australia. There is however data to start this conversation.

For example, the New South Wales Department of Education publishes data on students enrolled in support classes. The increase of enrolment in support classes is a long-term trend, but it is worth looking at short-term impact. For example, in 2018, 7,827 full-time equivalent students were attending primary support classes increasing to 9,542 students in 2021. This is 1,715 extra students. Similar increases are evident in secondary support classes and special schools. At the same time, the NSW Department of Education developed its Disability Strategy and Inclusive Education Statement for students with disability. 

These are substantial resources to tap in to support the transformation of mainstream schools. A national and state commitment to redirect resources is not about ‘losing’ these extra places. It is about gaining clarity of direction towards inclusion and utilising resources that are instrumental in releasing innovative possibilities. This will require considering the function of existing support classes during the different phases of the process.  

The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability was released on Friday September 29. It comprises 12 volumes with 222 recommendations.

Ilektra Spandagou is an Associate Professor at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. She has more than twenty years of experience in researching and teaching internationally in the areas of inclusive education policy and practice, comparative education, disability, classroom diversity, and curriculum differentiation.

The header image comes from Volume Seven of the final report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.