Australian Education Policies in Promoting Equality - Essay Example

Australian Education Policies Geared Towards Promoting Equality Name of Student Name of Instructor Course Institution Date of Submission Introduction Education is often termed as the key to success. However, this statement has often been doubted on the grounds of key individuals who have made it big in life without college degrees. Those cases can be called flukes of nature. Previously, education has been cited as a solution to equality according to a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1960 conference. In another convention, UNESCO cited education as key to eradicating poverty especially in developing countries in Africa and South America. All these benefits of education as cited by UNESCO do not primarily imply high level of education but rather implies universal primary education. Therefore, very basic levels of education that allow reading and writing skills have a huge role of improving life. In other studies, education levels have been associated with a number of social benefits. In Australia, there exist huge educational disparities especially between the indigenous communities and the non-indigenous communities. This paper assesses the role of education in improving the social life of Australia both indigenous and non-indigenous by relying on a number of studies and relevant literature. Discussion The Australian commonwealth government, state and federal governments have embarked on various policies of education intended to bring about various outcomes. On the overall, the policies have attempted to embrace and encourage literacy levels among the indigenous communities. In essence, there is a policy to engrave a culture of education. The culture celebrates education and views education as a basic need for all. In this context, culture is “expressed in a set of values and a way of life that is unique to its members and distinguishes them from other communities” (van Krieken, Habibis, Smith, Hutchins, Haralambos & Holborn, 2006, p. 6). Traditionally, the aboriginal people’s cultures did not recognize western education and was unknown to them. To them, education was passed down from one generation to the nest and involved skills in hunting and gathering, cultural practices among others. Therefore, the government plan is to convince the indigenous communities to incorporate western education in their culture. Education can be incorporated into traditional culture even though it is likely to challenge some practices. Borrowing from Robert Bierstedt’s on views on culture, culture comprises ways of thinking, ways of putting those ideas into practice and ways of putting the product of ideas to practice (cited in Kornblum, 2008),. From an Australian point of view, the Australian culture is mixed pitting three major groups: indigenous, white non-indigenous, immigrant population. All these cultures influence one another though the white non-indigenous culture has proved to be dominant. This means that there are different ways of thinking among the three major groups, different ways of putting those ideas into practice and different methods of putting the product of ideas into practice. By popularising western education among the three cultures, it is an attempt to create a uniform culture based on knowledge and information. Previously, the Australian policy on education has been limited to the institutional perception of public education. Such policies lack a fundamental vision on how to improve technical efficiency and preparing the country for a knowledge-based global economy. Funding and governance of education have been inhibited by poor and defragmented policies courtesy short term political goals. However, the recent past has seen a shift in the policies. One of the major policies, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, is geared towards addressing the whole picture in the Australian education system. The policy is geared towards inclusiveness, equity and the common good of the entire society. Another source of new policy changes is the Education Foundation, a division of the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). This foundation is determined to improve the quality and equity in the education system by calling for reflection and consistent policy evaluation. This foundation noted that previous education policies have exacerbated inequality and quality with the indigenous schools and communities largely on the losing side. The policies are informed by global standards. In this age and time of globalisation, countries have to compare and link policies to suit global standards. This is one of the fundamentals of globalisation. van Krieken et al. (2006, p. 38) define globalisation as “The interconnections of people are socially transformative and these interconnections are made possible by ‘human environments, population sizes and movements, technologies and economies, and cultures’… on various dimensions such as “social, geographical, biological, political, historical, cultural and intellectual components.” Therefore, any education policy in Australia will be benchmarked to global standards. Policy makers will consult with other governments especially in the OECD so as to make Australia globally competitive as a job market and also as symbol of democracy and equality. However, education is just one fo the many pillars of ensuring equality in a culturally divided country. Banks and McGhees (2005) says schools an education system must be conceptualized as part and parcel of a country’s social system because they replicate the society’s culture, power relations, attitudes and beliefs among others. For this reason, education and equity must not be viewed only as academic excellence of the students. In the case of Australia, global standards in equality and social structures are used to assess the progress of communities relatively lagging behind. However, the call for globalisation has been vehemently opposed by some people. The argument behind is that there is no way globalisation can promote equity. These claims are largely based on the history of Australia where globalisation is cited as the main cause of colonisation and occupation of the country leading to abuse and discrimination of the indigenous populations which have ever since remained relatively undeveloped despite Australia being one of the world developed countries. Xu (2007) brings out the issue of history of Australia in relation to globalisation. He says that the indigenous people’s perception of western education might be hinged on the bad experience on the occupation of Australia such as forceful separation and arbitrary arrests. As such, globalisation can be easily associated with immigrants where immigrants are also associated with a number of problems which Tepperman and Blain (2006) note as: potential to slow down economy, problem of assimilation and cultural unity, ideological and cultural divergence and problems in social cohesion and conflict. Data from the Australian Human Rights Commission (2008) also shows that indigenous Australians have been victim s rather than beneficiaries of globalisation in terms of population in prisons, diseases, alcohol and cigarette abuse and low life expectancy among others. All these are grounds on which reform in education geared towards equity can be opposed. The government has enacted a number of other policies aimed at improving the education situation in Australia. One of these policies is the National Partnership on Youth Attainment and Transitions of 2009. This policy aims at increasing the retention rate of youth in education and also the transition to higher education. The uptake of higher education especially among the indigenous communities has remained significantly low compared to other ethnic groups. This policy is however linked to other policies such as the National Early Childhood Development Strategy, aimed at increasing enrolment in early childhood education programs. Currently, only about 80% of Australian children are enrolled in early childhood education. Under the closing the gap initiative, the Council of Australian Governments have committed to making early childhood education programs accessible to an additional two million children. This will be accomplished through the National Early Childhood Development Strategy which identifies six priority areas as: assisting children at risk, improving mother child health services, increasing awareness on the importance of ECE, improved training programs for family support services and proper and timely collection of data on childhood services to inform policy and strategy formulation (COAG 2013). All these provisions are provided for also in the national partnership agreement on early childhood education which was signed in 2008 by commonwealth, states and territory governments, the commonwealth government committed a $970 million to state and territory governments over a five year period to ensure that children had at least one year of preschool learning prior to joining school. Majority of the above policies are planned and implemented by government. This brings into question the role of non-governmental organizations, religion groups, special interest groups and communities in ensuring that Australia as a society attains the desired benefit of education. Families as the most basic units of a society have been drafted into the education policies in different measure. The family school partnership program, which is a collaborative relationship and activities involving teaches and school staff, parents and other family members of school going children. This partnership is formulated in recognition of the fact that families are the first educators of children and influence their uptake of education later on in life. Families on the other hand trust schools to educate their children and hence it is important for the two groups of educators to collaborate in order to achieve the common goal of educating children and ensuring that they advance to higher education an even acquire additional skills. A number of studies have indicated that good parents-school relations are critical in influencing children’s performance academically and socially. This strategy developed a framework to guide school-family which requires that: the different parties make equally valuable contributions and acknowledge the role of each other; students’ needs take priority; partnership should result to better learning programs for children; families are involved in school decision making and governance; and both parties should contribute in manner that meets professional requirements of teachers and school principals (Family-school partnerships, 2013). Community involvement in education and education on the community play an important role in ensuring equality of opportunity. UNESCO recognizes that education plays an important in solving conflict and in communities rebuilding from conflict, war or recovering from economic backwardness. The situation facing the aboriginal communities in Australia has ben years of neglect and poor policies geared towards increasing school enrollment aiming the aboriginal communities. Therefore, it is important the community is educated on the importance of education and supporting the young children to enroll in schools as a way of fighting inequality in society. Banks and McGhees (2005) coin the term multicultural education as education aimed at different communities intended to bring about equality. However, in most cases education is associated with socioeconomic equality. The authors argue that education broaden opportunity in many fields such as health and even mindset. The authors state that no country or community has developed without educating its people first. Development in this case is viewed as equal to economic and social opportunities. The involvement in parents and especially in ECE has been noted to face resistance. In the case of Australia, some parents have demanded that education be conducted in native languages. This brings to the spotlight the importance of having cultural consideration in education. The same case has been witnessed among indigenous communities in Canada (Heymann & Cassola, 2012). Locals have actively opposed globalization efforts that seek to make education relevant to global education standards. Most communities demand culturally oriented education that seeks to inform young children about their history and struggles with colonizers and settlers. Such teachings are to be carried out in the respective community’s chosen language. Whether government policies allow the use of native languages as the instructional medium has been a topic of debate in Australia that require adequate attention with a finality. Conclusion Australia is definitely one multi-cultured nation. The progress of the county is however, hampered by the lagging behind of its aboriginal inhabitants. The closing the gap initiative, which incorporates health, education and other areas, seeks to ensure that the indigenous communities are at par with other communities in terms of social development. This way, the country will move ahead as a homogenous unit. From the above discussion, it is clear that the different levels of government are actively involved in ensuring equality in Australia with a special interest in the aboriginal communities. On the other, it must acknowledge that education is not the only way to promote equality. Such policies must be supported by other policies in other areas such as health, security, infrastructure and sports. When all these are addressed simultaneously, then the success of such policies will be evident and equality realized. References Australian Human Rights Commission. (2008). Face the facts: Some questions and answers about indigenous peoples, migrants and refugees and asylum seekers. Retrieved online on 25th Aug from, http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/face_facts/FTF_2008_Web.pdf Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. (2008). Closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage: The challenge for Australia. Retrieved online on 25th Aug 2013, from http://www.facs.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/general/Documents/closing_the_gap/default.htm Family-school partnerships, (2013). Family - school partnerships framework: A guide for schools and families Heymann, J. & Cassola, A. (2012). Lessons in educational equality: successful approaches to intractable problems around the world. London: Oxford University Press Kornblum, W. (2008). Sociology in a changing world (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. National Early Childhood Development Strategy. (2013). Retrieved online on 25th Aug 2013, from http://deewr.gov.au/national-early-childhood-development-strategy Tepperman, L. & Blain, J. (2006). Think twice! Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. UNESCO. Role of education. Retrieved online on 25th Aug 2013, from, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/fight-against-discrimination/role-of-education/ van Krieken, R., Habibis, D., Smith, P., Hutchins, B., Haralambos, M., & Holborn, M. (2006). Sociology: Themes and perspectives (3rd ed.). Sydney: Pearson Education Xu, Q. (2007). Globalization, immigration and the welfare state: A cross-national comparison. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 34(2), 87-106. Read More

This means that there are different ways of thinking among the three major groups, different ways of putting those ideas into practice and different methods of putting the product of ideas into practice. By popularising western education among the three cultures, it is an attempt to create a uniform culture based on knowledge and information. Previously, the Australian policy on education has been limited to the institutional perception of public education. Such policies lack a fundamental vision on how to improve technical efficiency and preparing the country for a knowledge-based global economy.

Funding and governance of education have been inhibited by poor and defragmented policies courtesy short term political goals. However, the recent past has seen a shift in the policies. One of the major policies, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, is geared towards addressing the whole picture in the Australian education system. The policy is geared towards inclusiveness, equity and the common good of the entire society. Another source of new policy changes is the Education Foundation, a division of the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA).

This foundation is determined to improve the quality and equity in the education system by calling for reflection and consistent policy evaluation. This foundation noted that previous education policies have exacerbated inequality and quality with the indigenous schools and communities largely on the losing side. The policies are informed by global standards. In this age and time of globalisation, countries have to compare and link policies to suit global standards. This is one of the fundamentals of globalisation.

van Krieken et al. (2006, p. 38) define globalisation as “The interconnections of people are socially transformative and these interconnections are made possible by ‘human environments, population sizes and movements, technologies and economies, and cultures’… on various dimensions such as “social, geographical, biological, political, historical, cultural and intellectual components.” Therefore, any education policy in Australia will be benchmarked to global standards. Policy makers will consult with other governments especially in the OECD so as to make Australia globally competitive as a job market and also as symbol of democracy and equality.

However, education is just one fo the many pillars of ensuring equality in a culturally divided country. Banks and McGhees (2005) says schools an education system must be conceptualized as part and parcel of a country’s social system because they replicate the society’s culture, power relations, attitudes and beliefs among others. For this reason, education and equity must not be viewed only as academic excellence of the students. In the case of Australia, global standards in equality and social structures are used to assess the progress of communities relatively lagging behind.

However, the call for globalisation has been vehemently opposed by some people. The argument behind is that there is no way globalisation can promote equity. These claims are largely based on the history of Australia where globalisation is cited as the main cause of colonisation and occupation of the country leading to abuse and discrimination of the indigenous populations which have ever since remained relatively undeveloped despite Australia being one of the world developed countries. Xu (2007) brings out the issue of history of Australia in relation to globalisation.

He says that the indigenous people’s perception of western education might be hinged on the bad experience on the occupation of Australia such as forceful separation and arbitrary arrests. As such, globalisation can be easily associated with immigrants where immigrants are also associated with a number of problems which Tepperman and Blain (2006) note as: potential to slow down economy, problem of assimilation and cultural unity, ideological and cultural divergence and problems in social cohesion and conflict.

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