In partnership with the Australian Education Markets (AusEM) academic network, the MD4SG Conversations with Practitioners working group had the privilege of interviewing The Hon. Prof. Verity Firth, AM. We talked to Prof. Firth about her thoughts on the Australian education system — drawing on her experience as the New South Wales Minister for Education and Training, a position she held from 2008 to 2011.
Segregation is one of the most important challenges in Australia’s education system
In Australia, public secondary school systems typically operate on the basis of “catchment areas,” which are roughly equivalent to a neighbourhood. Under this system, students are assigned to schools based on their place of residence, with each school taking in students from its immediate geographical proximity. This approach differs from school systems observed in many other countries, where “school choice” is employed. In such systems, students have the opportunity to apply to schools of their preference across a broader district, often encompassing an entire city, or the entire country.
The dependence on school catchment areas in the Australian public secondary school system has contributed to segregation by socio-economic status.
“One of the big problems that Australia faces is that we actually have one of the most segregated secondary schooling systems in the world. And by segregated, I mean between the high socio-economic status (SES) students and low socio-economic status students.”
“We’re the fourth most segregated [country] in the OECD. There is a long tail of underachievement in Australian secondary school outcomes in particular, and that of course impacts also on university entry, post-schooling training options, etc., as well.”
The “catchment area” school access model inherently links residential markets and access to schools. Therefore socio-economic inequality that manifests itself in residential segregation (e.g. some neighbourhoods being more affluent and having substantially higher housing prices, which lock out lower-SES households) can be further amplified by the school system (e.g. lower-SES students who live in poorer neighbourhoods not having access to higher-quality of better-resourced schools located in more affluent neighbourhoods) This may also further impact intergenerational social and economic mobility.
The Australian funding model has led to ‘residualisation’ of public schooling
Schools in Australia generally fall into 3 categories: public, private and religious schools. It is widely observed that private schools are wealthier, particularly on a per-student basis. This is in large part due to Australia’s unique government funding system, which funds both public and private schools, despite the fact that the latter are only open to fee-paying students.
“The problem was that when the non-government sector started to grow in Australia, Australian governments were very quick to fund that sector in similar ways that they were funding the Catholic education sector, and over time, it has led to a huge disparity in non-government schools and government schools. Unlike other non-government systems around the world, Australian governments fund non-government schooling, which is not open for all to attend.”
And this has led to “residualisation” of public schooling, a term that describes how families that have the means to move out of public schools do so and leave a “residue” of underprivileged families behind.
“Over time, we’ve seen a movement as parents choose to go to the better funded private schooling options. So now we’re at a case where we’re actually close to 50%, in some areas, at secondary school level, choosing non-government schooling options for their kids. This has led to a residualisation of public schooling, which in some areas is quite severe.”
“As the residualisation happens, we’ve also seen in outlying urban areas of major cities, low-fee religious schools pop up, which further segregates what’s left of the market into religious segregation or cultural segregation.”
Evidence shows that education outcomes are better in mixed cohort settings, particularly for low-SES students. A large-scale reform in education policies, however, would require bipartisan support, which is another challenge in Australia.
The Gonski model has not been put into practice
In 2012 the Australian government commissioned a review of secondary school funding, designed to reform school funding and lift outcomes for less privileged students through a new need-based funding model. (More details on the Gonski report is available here and further reporting and commentary is available here. )
Verity attributes the perceived failure to implement the recommendations of the Gonski model to political complications. She proposed some potential solutions to get around this issue.
“There’s been interesting policy work out of the Gonski Institute at University of New South Wales: What if we say we will continue to fund non-government schools, but only if their enrolment procedures are completely open (without fees). That would be much more in line with the rest of the world. The idea that we are putting government funding into elite schools that don’t allow people in unless they can pay is sort of bizarre in a public policy context.”
The government uses selective public schools and selective streams to build public confidence
Within public schools, there is also a distinction between selective and non-selective schools. The former are merit-based, admitting students based on highly competitive placement tests.
“Selective public schools are a problem if we’re being really serious about wanting cohort mix. But if you’re running a public education system and you know that middle class engagement with the public system is a benefit for all, you also need to drive public confidence in that system.”
Verity pointed out that selective public schools are not equally allocated geographically in New South Wales.
“So, what we did is to introduce selective streams within comprehensive high schools. My view was always that if we can get a situation where parents feel confident to send their kids to their local comprehensive schools because their kid has gained access to selective streams, that is probably providing engagement in the public sector, and it does boost parent confidence in their local high school.”
There is a trade-off between driving confidence in the public system and ‘residualisation’
In Verity’s time as Education minister, the New South Wales government introduced some flexibility in the public system through allowing out-of-area applications and specialist schools. However, too much flexibility may come with a cost of “residualisation”.
“If you allow too much freedom of movement, then that can lead to perverse consequences, like just terrible residualisation for certain schools. So, you need to balance making public education attractive for parents, driving confidence in the system, without abandoning whole communities as there is middle class flight out of their schools.”
This applies to the debate on centralised school choice systems, which are becoming common in the US and many other countries. Verity agreed that we need such creative responses in the Australian context, but these systems should be designed so that they would not lead to further elite capture.
How should we restore trust in the public school system?
One of the key steps to restoring trust in the public system is to bring the elites back to the public system.
“We do know that trust in government went up in Australia during Covid, particularly in the operation of the public health system. When the population can see that the government is competent and responding to its needs, trust goes up.”
“The elites are no longer with the public education system. That is the loss of influence and the loss of cultural capital that they’ve got. So, when I was the Minister, my main job was to try to drive people to go back to the public education system, build confidence and excellence in that system.”
The interview with Verity Firth was led and summarised by Emil Temnyalov and Kentaro Tomoeda.
