Educational Inequity in Australia - Report Example

Contribution of Socioeconomic and Geographical factors to educational inequity in Australia Introduction The character of a nation is built on the foundation of education. There has been persistent inequity in education sector within Australia for long. This has been witnessed especially in terms of access and participation between certain community groups. According to Gale & Tranter (2011), studies carried out in 1990s revealed that groups such as women, indigenous communities, people from non-English speaking backgrounds and people with disabilities were underrepresented in schools especially in institutions of higher learning. Much has been carried out since then to address the issue of accessibility and participation of these subgroups to education. Education system, which ensures wider accessibility, enhances political health of a nation since people are able to participate in community, social and political life in a better way and be able to make balanced choices, which are based on intelligence (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). It also ensures that political power is spread among the population. Furthermore, access to education reduces perceived inequities of opportunity and thus reduces social tensions arising from it. Labour market efficiency is also improved with wider accessibility to education. Finally, equal accessibility to education ensures that the productivity potential of a country is increased (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). However, various policies instituted have not been able to address inequity in education between people dwelling in rural and urban areas of Australia and between groups with poor socioeconomic backgrounds and those with medium and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Inequity based on rural and urban dwellers A serous geographical disparity exists in education standards between rural and urban dwellers in Australia. It is estimated that for every ten students from urban areas who join institutions of higher learning, only six from rural dwelling do so (Gale & Tranter, 2011). Studies indicate that students residing in rural Australia are less likely to complete year 12 of school and that they tend to perform poorly as compared to students residing in urban setting. In addition, students residing in rural Australia have a more restricted choice of subjects (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). The number of schools available to choose from in rural setting in Australia is also low and this contributes to relatively low performance in education for students residing in rural or in outer suburbs of Australian major cities (Angus, 1993). Studies indicate that students from rural and urban setting differ in their outlooks and priorities. Students from urban dwelling emphasize having high status careers and on making high incomes (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). On the other hand, students from rural settings have no such emphasis (Teese, 2007). In addition, students from urban setting are more concerned than those from rural areas with having their parents around them and attaining the parents’ and families’ expectations (Holsinger & Jacob, 2009). Studies also indicate that there is a great difference between levels of achievement between rural and urban students in Australia (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). This has partly been attributed to high rates of staff turnover in rural areas. It has been stated that staffing difficulties in rural areas of Australia make up the greatest barrier higher performance of rural student (Gale & Tranter, 2011). The difficulties experienced during recruitment and retention in rural schools implies that most teachers in these schools are inexperienced and hence are unlikely to be effective in teaching (Argy, 2007). Surveys also indicate that the greatest education limitation faced by rural and remote dwellers in Australia is accessibility to education (Angus, 1993). Due to difficulties in accessibility, the rural dwellers are expected to pay more in terms of transport costs to send their children to school (Holsinger & Jacob, 2009). Most parents are not able to meet these costs and hence their children end up dropping out of school prematurely (Graham, 2007). Inequity on the basis of socioeconomic status It is estimated that for every ten students from medium or higher socioeconomic background areas who join institutions of higher learning, only five from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do so (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). This is not only for Australia but other developed nations too experience this disparity in participation and accessibility based on socioeconomic backgrounds of the individuals. It has been reported that there is a marked differences in education performance among people from well of families and those from poor backgrounds (Gale & Tranter, 2011). It has been theorized that this could be explained by both genetic influences and differences in opportunities and resources (Angus, 1993). This has been supported by longitudinal studies across the globe which has indicated that social class origin of an individual partly determines the success rates at school and post-school (Graham, 2007). This is mainly related to the occupational status, wealth, education and aspirations of the parents of the said individual (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). The discrepancy in academic performance between high performing and lower performing Australian students is very large. This discrepancy has been attributed mainly to class, social and family background (The University of Adelaide, 2010). This has made Australia to be classed as high quality/low equity among OECD countries because it has an outstanding education standard but the difference among the best performers and poor performers is very high (Angus, 1993). The reason given for socioeconomic discrepancies in accessibility and performance in education in Australia is that the governments allocates very little amount of money on education and on active labour market programs and that what is spend on education is flows proportionately to students who are more advantaged (Gale & Tranter, 2011). The dependency of Australian education system on private financing has enhanced the problem of socioeconomic related inequity in accessibility and performance in education. This is because parents from well of families spend 2.6 times more on education of their children than those from poor families (Graham, 2007). The problem of accessibility begins during early childhood education and care where most children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are not able to access it (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). This results in delayed or inappropriate development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, which are essential for facilitating their entry into employment when they become adults. The issue of discrepancy is not resolved even as the students enter secondary schools (Gale & Tranter, 2011). Rich parents pump much capital into their children’s education who mostly attends private schools, which are well endowed with resources as opposed to poor parents who send their children to public schools with less educational resources (Teese, 2007). It is estimated that the total per capita expenditure on private schools is about a third more than that on public schools (Angus, 1993). Children attending private schools are able thus to interact with children whose parents are ambitious and well educated. Good teachers are also attracted more to private schools than to public schools (Graham, 2007). Thus, public schools are disadvantaged and children attending them mainly from poor socioeconomic backgrounds are too disadvantaged when compared to those attending private schools. The problem of socioeconomically disadvantaged students does not end at school. At home, these students are not able to access information and communication technologies (Angus, 1993). Studies indicate that digital divide in Australia is unusually great as compared to other OECD countries (Graham, 2007). Better access to information technologies has been found to able to improve the learning skills and the motivation to learn for low achieving students (Gale & Tranter, 2011). However, since these technologies are unavailable to student from lower socioeconomic backgrounds they remain disadvantaged (Teese, 2007). All these factors related to socioeconomic background of a student determine his/her academic achievement (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). As a result, the achievement gap between rich and poor children is so wide. In addition, the performance of public schools in Australia, which have relatively high proportion of children from poor socioeconomic background as opposed to private schools, is also poor. As a result, it is estimated that about 20% of Australian adults from poor backgrounds have poor literacy skills and an even lower computer literacy (Angus, 1993). The representation of students from poor backgrounds and public schools in Australian universities has also been dwindling in recent past (Gale & Tranter, 2011). The main reason for this has been said to be inability of these students to attain the entry grades which is attributed to the education system at secondary level (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). The decline in government funding for adult vocational education and training has also necessitated a decline in levels of participation socially disadvantaged groups in these programs. Recommendation The government ought to reduce parental advantage based on socioeconomic status through regulation and fiscal involvement (Angus, 1993). This will enable students with poor socioeconomic backgrounds to attain their desired educational preferences and capabilities. This calls for the government to make education outcomes to be dependent on motivation, intelligence and effort through well-targeted implementation of government intervention, which can beneficial to the whole society. We recommend that the government should strive to provide equal educational opportunity and potential (Holsinger & Jacob, 2009). This can be attained by the government supporting a strong system of public schooling and a wide provision of non-government school. We also recommend that government should provide differential funding levels in order to provide equal opportunity for all students based on socioeconomic variables and the level of educational disadvantage. We also recommend that the government should be involved in sensitizing the public for the need to invest in education (MCEETYA Taskforce on Indigenous Education, 2000). This is because many people are not able to make choices, which are well informed because they have limited knowledge of the returns they can receive by investing in their children’s education. This will also help them to make right choices based on their limited resources (Angus, 1993). Such initiative will be much helpful to rural dwellers whose findings show that students pursue higher education due to lack of job and not motivation to have a better paying job which somehow impact negatively on their performance (Teese, 2007). We also recommend that the government be involved in the improvement of the effectiveness of teachers. This may be attained through better training and offering them better pay packages (Holsinger & Jacob, 2009). This is based on the fact that most teachers who are efficient move to private schools, which have better pay and resources leaving public schools with less effective teachers (Marginson, 2011). As noted above public schools are mostly attended by students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and coupled with ineffective teachers, their performance dwindles (Graham, 2007). The funding in public schools need to be increased by the government in order to help teachers to be effective in their teaching. Since it has been found that students in private schools perform better than those in public schools, we recommend that the government should come up with a policy that enables more of public schools to attend higher education (Hanushek & Welch, 2006). This may be in a form of reducing entry points into universities for students undertaking secondary education in public and rural areas as the government try to improve the effectiveness of teachers (MCEETYA Taskforce on Indigenous Education, 2000). This would assist students from poor backgrounds to access this essential studies for equal economic prosperity across the country. We also recommend that the government improve the social amenities in rural areas to reduce high rates of turnover among teachers to curb the performance discrepancies attributed to high turnover. Conclusion The socioeconomic status and geographical dwelling of students in Australia impact on students’ accessibility to education and their performance. Students from better socioeconomic backgrounds perform better than those from poor backgrounds. This is mainly because students with rich parents are able to access private schools, which are well funded, and with better teaching and learning facilities as opposed to most students from poor backgrounds who mostly attend public schools, which are underfunded, and with few learning and teaching resources. Just like rich students, students residing in urban setting perform better than their counterparts from rural areas of Australia. This is mainly attributed to inaccessibility to education facilities and high teacher turnover in rural Australia. Reference Angus, L. (1993). Education, inequality, and social identity. London: Routledge. Argy, F (2007). Education inequalities in Australia. Retrieved from http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/new-critic/five/educationinequalities Gale, T., & Tranter, D. (2011). Social justice in Australian higher education policy: an historical and conceptual account of student participation. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 29-46 Graham, L. 2007. (Neo)Liberal Doses of Inequality: Advance Australia Where? In Proceedings, 2007 Philosophy in Education Society of Australasia (PESA) Annual Conference, Wellington. Retrieved from http://mq.academia.edu/LindaGraham/Papers/93846/_Neo_Liberal_Doses_of_Inequality_Advance_Australia_Where Hanushek, E., & Welch, F. (2006). Handbook of the economics of education, vol. 1. Sydney: Elsevier Holsinger, D., & Jacob, J. (2009). Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives. Melbourne: Springer Marginson, S. (2011).Global Position and Position-taking in Higher Education: The Case of Australia. Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific, 36(4), 375-392 MCEETYA Taskforce on Indigenous Education. (2000). Achieving Educational Equality for Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Retrieved from http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/reporta_file.pdf Teese, R. (2007). International studies in educational inequality, theory and policy: Inequality : educational theory and public policy, vol. 3. Sydney: Springer. The University of Adelaide. (2010). Education inequalities mapped in new report. Retrieved from http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news37601.html Read More