PROPOSALS FOR CHANGE IN AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION -- A radical critique

This paper challenges the new 'conventional' wisdom that is coming to be accepted in Australia about what education is for, a widely shared educational orthodoxy that is typified by, but by no means restricted to, the views of the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Mr John Dawkins, and the Green Paper on Higher Education. Both school level and post-secondary education in Australia are now at a turning point, with the dismantling of long established mechanisms for federal coordination, and with fundamental changes proposed to funding arrangements. Much of the debate is carried out within a framework of unexamined assumptions about the purposes of education and about the current social and economic environment. These basic assumptions must be questioned. The backdrop to the debate includes conflicting political principles, individual values, and sectional and institutional self-interest. The paper argues, first, that the present educational orthodoxy is seriously unbalanced and distorted in several ways, to the detriment of the long-term national interest. Secondly, it is claimed that much of the orthodox argument about the linkages between education, the labour market and economic growth represents dubious economics. Thus we attempt to show that the prevailing rationalistic argument is flawed in its own terms, and also that it is based on a narrow view of the role of education in the contemporary environment. ** This was prepared and presented as the Theme Paper at an Australian National University Public Affairs Conference on the Role and Purpose of Education in Australia, held in April 1988.