Contemporary Social Issues in Australia - Report Example

Introduction It has been observed that performance, in terms of education varies greatly amid the two social and economic groups. In the Journal of Australian Social Monitor by Saunder (2002), the gap between the low and high socio-economic factions is at times attributed to genetics influences; however, such a gap can be said to be caused by opportunities or resources inequality. Education or training in general represents a gateway to the future for all Australians (Argy, 2006). It is vital that all Australians, despite their socio-economic background, get a successful life in their adult years in order to be of great service within the adult society. It is required that children who come from different backgrounds be started on an equal footing. This study, within the first section, will explore the statistics in terms of education spread within Australia. The second section will identify the reasons why it is vital to establish education or training equality within Australia. The third section will change into the different areas within the education system that may require policy changes in order to achieve equality within the training or education process. Inequality within Education and Training in Australia In the Journal of Australian Social Monitor by Kelley and Evans, (2002), Australia’s average education and training outcome is high; however, Australia has still not been able to achieve education equality. For starters, a good proportion of Australian children do not have an average education. It has also been noted that more than 30% of all Australian students are not able to complete their 12th year (Kelley and Evans, 2002). Furthermore, only about 86% of students who are 15 years are able to achieve the required international aptitude standards in such areas as science, reading and mathematics (Bertola, 2000). These are just the general statistics. A look into the different socio-economic backgrounds offers startling evidence of the inequality in the education system. For instance, there exist achievement gaps between children from high and low socio-economic groups and between the non-indigenous and indigenous factions of Australia. It is noted that 41% of children from low-income families are unable to complete their 12th year while only 22% of children from high-income families do the same (Saunders, 2002). Non-indigenous children have also been reported to have high education outcomes as compared to their indigenous children counterparts with almost 60% of indigenous children not getting to their 12th year as compared to only 25% of the non-indigenous children (Kelley and Evans, 2002). The governments of Australia have already intervened in the education process, for instance, it is mandatory to attend public education, which is free; students who are able to attend universities are able to enjoy heavy government subsidies. However, this cannot be said to be enough; more needs to be done. Australia as a country appears to be internationally ranked as of high education standards; however, as a country, Australia, lags behind in education access levels. Importance of equality Different studies conducted all over the globe have suggested that the success rate within school and after school are in the most part influenced by one’s socio-economic status. The socio-economic status refers to the wealth owned one’s parents, parent’s aspirations, parent’s education and finally the parent’s status within the society. Employment inequality, in most cases, is as a result of education inequality. The government should come in and dilute the advantage offered by the parents in order to ensure that children from poor backgrounds are also able to achieve the expected outcome in terms of education. Such a government effort will ensure that education outcomes are solely dependent on one’s motivation, intelligence or effort, and in this way, the whole society will benefit. It has been observed that persons from low socio-economic statuses cannot come up with good choices since they are unaware of the existing varying returns that can be as a result of different levels of education (Leigh, 2006). In cases where they are informed of the choices before them, such persons are unable to practice these choices due to the unavailability of resources. Furthermore, there has also been some level of discouragement among employers, with regard to providing further training to employees who are of low education levels. This has been in part due to the poaching practice. Therefore, without the government’s assistance the markets of education operate in a much different manner. Even positive externalities, such as providing a significant number of citizens with proper training and education, are not taken into account. The following is an examination of such positive outcomes. A nation’s political atmosphere is enhanced in cases where education is widespread among the citizens of the nation. This is because the voters, who are well informed and aware, are able to take part in community, social and political aspects of the nation, hence they make well-informed and intelligent decisions. An educated nation also reduces the dangers of having excessively powerful politicians. By facilitating a wider access to education, the government also helps in minimising any tensions that may arise because of opportunity inequalities. Wide-ranging admission of student to schools and at employment places, without regard to background, is a good way of diluting social tension that may be a result of lack of equal opportunities. The margin of earnings has been observed to broaden between high school graduates and those do not manage to complete high school with the former having an increased from a paltry 19% to a figure of 42% in the last two centuries (Corak, 2004). The main factors attributed to the increase are technical change whereby work has required trained people with competence, relaxation of trade restriction in international markets and delegating of services to competent people. The government has been encouraging wide-ranging admission to schools so as to improve the output of the laboring commercial organization and increase the engagement of more people in employment. Global scale growth and increased rate of technical change call for more mobility and flexibility of available labor and this is not likely to be the situation if the education options are restrained by fiscal circumstances. Faced by a scenario of an increase in the number of old people and consequently a surge in the number of dependent people, developing countries have been trying to increase the engagement of more people in employment ranging from the unemployed, those who barely participate in employment especially the handicapped and school dropouts. Research has shown that the step taken by the government to better the passage of more people from education institutions to employment. The study shows that this activity can produce huge benefits to the labor involvement and increase income per person while also diluting chances of people being unemployed (Johnson, and Taylor, 2000). Another benefit of equality in admission to education institutions is that it affects the production ability of a state or organization. The impartiality in education is an indicator of an economy that is not performing as per its objectives. The reduction of the inequality enables people who are well informed and well motivated to be able to achieve their potential in educational and work circles. This in turn reduces crime rates, lowers the demand for health services and results in an economic system that is more objective and future oriented. However, the involvement of the government in the process of reducing inequality in education levels has come with some challenges. These challenges involved deciding how to allocate subsidies and determining the areas that offer more proceeds in the field of education. Various factors have been hindering policy makers in their quest for successful reduction of inequality in education. Childhood care and admission to school at early ages has been extremely low in the country and early childhood education has been greatly underfunded. Better admission of children at early ages to schools would increase the chances of the children having a better future (Hoekel, Field, Justesen and Kim, 2008). The access to school at tender ages would increase the children’s growth and health and ease their employment at adulthood. The society would benefit in that there would be less benefit dependence and crime rate would reduce while the national productivity would increase. There has been less funding from the government for students in private schools as compared to funding for the students admitted at public schools. However, parents have been increasing their investment in private schools. There has been a disparity between educational resources and the background status of children, with the poor children having less investment done within their public schools. Children attending private schools have also been advantaged over public school students in that they are able to interact with children whose parents are educated and have better jobs hence great ambitions. Public schools on the other hand have been suffering from dilapidated infrastructure that does not attract skilled teachers (Chapman, and Ryan, 2002). Research studies have shown that the results that students get are greatly influenced by the student’s peers, background and component of the school they attend. It has also been observed that students at public school are not very disciplined, are slow to learn and mostly perform poorly in examinations despite the cost per student being high. There has also been underfunding to disadvantaged children. Children and young people who come from families that are disadvantaged in socio-economic status have been encountering problems related to means of getting information and access to devices engineered for communication especially if their homes are located in remote areas or are not close to urban centers. With the rapid growth of connection to digital devices that have faster and wide ranging abilities to communicate, there is a risk of the splitter between the those with the know how to operate such technologies and those not informed widening in the coming days. Ability to get to use technologies that are used to relay information is a sure way of enhancing skills that are acquired from studying and a motivation to underperforming students. In Eide, and Showalter’s (1999), article it has been observed that there has been inequality in education levels by virtual of region and geographic location with the probability of students living in rural areas been able to complete school decreasing, urban students been better performers in education and there being a limited number of subjects to choose from for rural students. Schools in the rural areas have also been observed to be fewer than in suburban areas and urban towns. It is therefore not surprising that in two decades, the disparity between accomplishments of children who come from well-endowed backgrounds as compared to those from poor families has increased. Estimates have shown that about a quarter of the adult population has inadequate ability to read and write and skills related to computing devices are still lower. Considering those estimates from a national point of view it can observed that no achievement as a result of hindrance related to social and economic factors represent an enormous waste of prospective human resource. A task force set by the ministry of education and youth affair has indicated that additional money is needed to guarantee that public school remain as competent and competitive. While the political debates on issues related to education have been revolving around cultural issues and issues to do with quality of education, there should be more focus on the education of children who come from families that are not well off. The debates should be centered on disparity in education of disadvantaged children in secondary schools. This should be in regard to poor infrastructure in public schools, faulty policies in allocation of grants, lack of motivation for skilled teachers to educate disadvantaged kids, faulty enrollment policies in non-governmental institutes that favor only one group of students and lastly poor channeling of funds in public education. Only a quarter of the student population attends private schools and yet during university enrollment they receive almost a third of the offers from university. The lack of many students being able to make it to university could partly be due to high costs involved in university education, credit constraints or people not wanting to accumulate debts by education loans institution (Chapman, and Ryan, 2002). Despite all these reasons, the major problem facing disadvantaged students is that they do not meet the set up qualification grades which can be attributed to the secondary school education they receive. However, the stress of juggling between long hours of work for less pay and university education has been a major hindrance to efforts of study by poorer students. The problem may be aggravated by the ban on mandatory student unionism by the government. The union’s installations and support through subsidies have been facilitating students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This means that they will now be compelled to rely on well-wishers. University administrators committee has recommended a raise of the allowance allocated to the youth and extensive financial support to the students from poor backgrounds. There has been a decrease in the number of disadvantaged people attending vocational education until recently. This may have been partly due to a decrease in funding of vocational centers by the government and raising user prices. However, another factor attributed to the decline of engagement in vocational training is that firms have preferred not to invest so much in training that is not contractual. In an article written by Corak and Heisz, (1999), low intern salaries could also be deterrence to people with ability who could have applied for some jobs. There has also been a tendency of decrease in training hours, whereby short-term coaching has been preferred over apprenticeship. Reports from a recent study have shown that there is more gain from adult education curriculum targeting people with less skills or elderly workers as a well-crafted training would increase work participation and uptake of more people in jobs. This investment by the government would then later pay through increase in taxes money collected and there would be less expenditure of maintenance of the elderly in the end. With there being an urgent demand for increased engagement in employment by the insufficiently trained, it is a fact that there should be more debates centered on vocational training. References Argy, F. (2006). Equality of opportunity in Australia myth and reality. The Australia Institute Journal, 11-47. Bertola, G. (2000). Macroeconomics of distribution and growth. Handbook of Income Distribution Volume 1, Elsevier: Amsterdam. Chapman, B. and Ryan, C. (2002). Income-contingent financing of student charges for higher education, CEPR Corak, M. and Heisz, A. (1999). The intergenerational earnings and income mobility of Canadian men. Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 32, No. 1. Corak, M. (2004). Generational North America and Europe, Cambridge University Press, UK. Eide, E. and Showalter, M. (1999). Factors affecting the transmission of earnings across generations. Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 34, Spring. Evans, M.D.R. and Kelley, J. (2002). Family background and educational success in Australia. Australian Social Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 3,45-68 Evans, M.D.R. and Kelley, J. 2002b. Australian economy and society 2001, Federation Press, Sydney, p. 13. Johnson, J. and Taylor, J. (2000). The invisible Australians: Conceptions of poverty in Australia, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Fitzroy Kelley, J. and Evans, M.D.R. (2002). Creating prosperity for all? Australian Social Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 1 Kelley, J. and Evans M.D.R. (2002). Australian Economy and Society 2001, Federation Press, Sydney. Leigh, A. (2006). Intergenerational mobility in Australia, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, Draft Saunders, P. (2002). The deserving poor: changing community views on the causes of poverty. Journal of Australian Social Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 2 Wilson, S. and Breusch, T. (2004). After the tax revolt: why Medicare matters more to Middle Australia than lower taxes, Australian Journal of Social Issues Hoekel, K., Field, S., Justesen, T., & Kim, M. (2008). Learning for jobs: OECD reviews of vocational education and training Australia. Journal of Australia OECD 2-39. Read More

It is noted that 41% of children from low-income families are unable to complete their 12th year while only 22% of children from high-income families do the same (Saunders, 2002). Non-indigenous children have also been reported to have high education outcomes as compared to their indigenous children counterparts with almost 60% of indigenous children not getting to their 12th year as compared to only 25% of the non-indigenous children (Kelley and Evans, 2002). The governments of Australia have already intervened in the education process, for instance, it is mandatory to attend public education, which is free; students who are able to attend universities are able to enjoy heavy government subsidies.

However, this cannot be said to be enough; more needs to be done. Australia as a country appears to be internationally ranked as of high education standards; however, as a country, Australia, lags behind in education access levels. Importance of equality Different studies conducted all over the globe have suggested that the success rate within school and after school are in the most part influenced by one’s socio-economic status. The socio-economic status refers to the wealth owned one’s parents, parent’s aspirations, parent’s education and finally the parent’s status within the society.

Employment inequality, in most cases, is as a result of education inequality. The government should come in and dilute the advantage offered by the parents in order to ensure that children from poor backgrounds are also able to achieve the expected outcome in terms of education. Such a government effort will ensure that education outcomes are solely dependent on one’s motivation, intelligence or effort, and in this way, the whole society will benefit. It has been observed that persons from low socio-economic statuses cannot come up with good choices since they are unaware of the existing varying returns that can be as a result of different levels of education (Leigh, 2006).

In cases where they are informed of the choices before them, such persons are unable to practice these choices due to the unavailability of resources. Furthermore, there has also been some level of discouragement among employers, with regard to providing further training to employees who are of low education levels. This has been in part due to the poaching practice. Therefore, without the government’s assistance the markets of education operate in a much different manner. Even positive externalities, such as providing a significant number of citizens with proper training and education, are not taken into account.

The following is an examination of such positive outcomes. A nation’s political atmosphere is enhanced in cases where education is widespread among the citizens of the nation. This is because the voters, who are well informed and aware, are able to take part in community, social and political aspects of the nation, hence they make well-informed and intelligent decisions. An educated nation also reduces the dangers of having excessively powerful politicians. By facilitating a wider access to education, the government also helps in minimising any tensions that may arise because of opportunity inequalities.

Wide-ranging admission of student to schools and at employment places, without regard to background, is a good way of diluting social tension that may be a result of lack of equal opportunities. The margin of earnings has been observed to broaden between high school graduates and those do not manage to complete high school with the former having an increased from a paltry 19% to a figure of 42% in the last two centuries (Corak, 2004). The main factors attributed to the increase are technical change whereby work has required trained people with competence, relaxation of trade restriction in international markets and delegating of services to competent people.

The government has been encouraging wide-ranging admission to schools so as to improve the output of the laboring commercial organization and increase the engagement of more people in employment.

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