Speech - National Public Education Forum - 27Mar10

Thank you for your invitation to speak at the National Public Education Forum on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott

I plan to use this time to first of all reflect on what the Rudd Government has actually delivered nearing the end of their first term in education and then talk to you about one important policy area the Coalition is announcing today.

Far from being the great policy triumph Julia Gillard would have us believe - the Rudd Government's education revolution, is something of a damp squib rather than anything revolutionary.

The fiasco of the school hall debacle is a clear example.

But you will recall first, we had the computers in schools' program. It sounded great at the time - indeed the centrepiece of Labor's education policy at the last election. Now, here we are two and half year later, and its assessment time.

We know that the whole computers policy was flawed from the start, it was poorly costed and lacked detail from the very beginning. And poor policy design translates to poor implementation.

The Federal Government had to fork out additional funding to the states to try to get the program out of freefall, but even as of February only 220,000 of the promised one million computers have actually been delivered and none of them have been connected to the very fast fibre broadband as originally promised by the Prime Minister.

Then we had the Primary Schools for the 21^st Century program.

We know that the implementation of this program has been as poor as that of the computers in schools program-hideously overpriced, and riddled with examples of systemic waste, skimming and substitution by state governments, gouging by private enterprise and delivering not what government schools necessarily need but what they are told they must have by faceless bureaucrats around the country.

John Irving, General Secretary of the NSW Teachers Federation has recently joined the other voices concerned about this program, in particular the implementation problems that are occurring.

Mr Irving - wrote to the NSW Auditor General in the following terms:

"Since the announcement, however, the BER has generated concern and criticism on issues such as: the capacity of a school to determine and meet its particular requirements and priorities, over-pricing of building quotations and tenders, gross discrepancies between before and after costs, wasteful duplication (constructing new buildings instead of renovating and refurbishing existing buildings) and particularly public schools receiving pre-fabricated buildings while neighbouring non-government schools are able to build permanent structures at much greater value for money".

John Irving's last point is one that I believe needs particular attention -just how inclusive and universal are the Labor Government's policies when they have let government schools down so badly?

We have the unfortunate situation that instead of giving our schools what they actually needed and wanted, the Labor Government decided to give them what it wanted.

My point is that the school halls debacle is a classic example that blindly spending money is not a substitute for well thought out and well considered public policy.

Now let me turn for a moment to the implementation of the National Curriculum - the development of which started under the Coalition Government.

With the National Curriculum we again have all the ingredients of another great-sounding Labor Government program that falls flat at the implementation stage.

The tight schedule involved - 2011 is to be a pilot year involving a number of schools around the country - and no resources coming from the Federal Government for all the additional teacher training and development required - leaves me with the impression that this change too is set to fail.

It doesn't take much imagination to guess that extra burdens will fall on those who have to deliver the initiative, the teachers and administrators who are already overworked and under-resourced.

Primary school principals tell me they are already worried about their capacity to deliver the very ambitious science, history and math components of the curriculum. They worry that the amount of the detail prescribed is simply too much. We are already experiencing teacher shortages, particularly in areas like science, and the demands of the new curriculum will merely exacerbate the problems while leaving those at the coal-face in schools to pick up the pieces.

For instance, we know that only 16 universities in Australia train history teachers and 10 of these are in NSW. It will be necessary for universities to significantly adjust to meet this new demand, particularly given that the curriculum mandates as many as 80 hours of history a year. Bear in mind that NSW, the only state that currently teaches history as a stand-alone subject, only sets aside 50 hours per year for teaching this subject in years 7 to 10.

I noted with some interest comments by Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority chief executive officer Peter Hill, reported in the media on Thursday.

Mr Hill obviously by this stage has heard loudly and clearly the concerns we all share, and said "One of the dangers in all curriculum development is that one starts with too much... If we have too much, sure we have to pare it down, we will look at that."

I'm glad that ACARA is not deaf to the concerns of teachers and educators, but this episode merely goes to illustrate what can happen when the government takes a good idea and tries to do too much too fast and with little thought about the resources and assistance needed to implement it.

So what is the education challenge in Australia in 2010 to deliver a universal and inclusive education systems for all our children? I can answer this in one word - and that's quality.

I want to see the education debates we are having return to the issue of quality, not quantity - with a focus on inputs, not on money spent, but the results the that funding produces.

Since coming in to my role as the shadow education minister, my prime objective has been to focus the education debate more squarely on quality. And I stress here, not to the detriment of education funding. I will leave the discussion about the forthcoming review on schools funding for another day.

What matters for outcomes is quality - and only the Coalition is in the business of quality education ideas.

What links our education reforms is a simple yet powerful idea: that the basis of best policy is to trust people whose decisions matter most - students and parents, teachers and principals - the people whose decisions locally determine our future nationally.

We believe in high academic standards, a clear and flexible curriculum and strong but fair policies on school discipline.

This brings me to my next point - I want to talk about the concerning reports we are hearing about school violence and disorder, and in particular the escalation of cyber-bullying.

At this time, state government information about cyber-bullying and bullying, disruptive and aggressive behaviour in schools is partial and fragmented at best.

If parents are to expect that their child has access to a universal and inclusive public education, it goes without saying that we need to expect that children are safe both at school, and off campus. Teachers and principals need to have enough freedom to maintain a strong learning environment.

With the advent of cyber-bullying, there are new challenges for parents and educators; it is well past time for all Governments to step up their efforts to make our schools safe environments for all our students.

The Coalition has a five point plan to immediately lead a nationally consistent approach on bullying and cyber-bulling which I am pleased to be able to announce today.

The first point is about trusting those that matter the most. If re-elected, a Coalition Government would require the states through future funding agreements with the Commonwealth to support principals with a new delegation to decide what action can be taken in schools at a practical level with regard to bullying.

The Coalition understands that the types and frequency of bullying incidences that occur are never the same in each school.

Just imagine - for the first time, principals would have the freedom to make decisions in the own schools, about the kind of action needed to combat any bullying and cyber bullying problems occurring within their community.

For example, the principal could choose what training and support can be offered to students engaging in bullying behaviour, or even choose to apply conditions on a student's behaviour when the student is in attendance at school.

Some might decide offering options such as 'graduated return' to school might be best for particular students, or others might like to incorporate peer review by students at the school as part of the process. The possibilities are endless.

Secondly, we would also immediately move to form a new Cyber Bullying taskforce comprising representatives from industry with an emphasis on "Information technology" experts, academics, education stakeholders for both government and non-government sectors, teachers and parents, representatives from law enforcement agencies such as police, students and "role models".

With the advent of cyber-bullying, we need to urgently work with industry in the spaces where cyber bullying is occurring (for example, facebook, myspace, online chatrooms, and through SMS on mobile phones).

It will send a clear message about the commitment by participating agencies to be proactive in preventing bullying, and responding effectively to incidents.

The taskforce will review existing safety materials that are provided to children, advise on industry best practices, and be responsible for developing a code of practice for social networking sites with a flagged system for children to refer offensive posts.

We know, and I get emails nearly every day from parents about this, that there is a need for a consistent complaints process, including timeframes in which complaints must be followed up quickly and copies of offensive posts must be provided to authorities.

Our vision is to secure commitment from organisations and groups that run social networking sites and other cyber arenas where bullying occurs that are available to children and young people, so that they can be proactive in their approach to tackling bullying.

Kevin Rudd's approach which simply is putting emphasis back on the child and parent to take all responsibility and accountability without addressing some of the root issues is just not good enough.

The Prime Minister's 'vigilante' approach - where he advocates parents of victims confront the parents of bullies is unacceptable. It is as unacceptable as Julia Gillard's call for parents to "rouse" teachers identified as so called "underperforming" through the MySchool website.

Parents and schools should have clear reporting methods resulting in appropriate action, and parents need to be engaged right from the beginning.

So this brings me to the third point - a Coalition Government will develop, nationally consistent minimum standards of reporting required of all Australian schools so that no parent should have to resort to taking this action.

This will include clear reporting lines for parents, and the new mechanism means parents who have made complaints are included in the process of dealing with conflict resolution.

A national audit of school bullying policies and practices will be undertaken to ensure that all schools are working towards the best practice model that will suit their community.

The Labor Government also cancelled the former Coalition's 'National Safe Schools Week', signalling a disturbing shift in priorities away from this area. This bring me to my fourth point, if re-elected the Coalition will re-establish an education campaign which will improve resources and education for teachers, parents, students (of all age groups) and school communities to help them deal with abuse and bullying, with particular attention to abuse involving mobile phones and cyber bullying.

My last and fifth point is the continuation of research. In our last term of Government we commissioned two research projects to better understand these cyber bullying issues and the impact on Australian schools.

The Labor Government has continued this research, but beyond this little action has been taken.

The truth is when we closely examine their record in secondary or primary education it shows we simply cannot trust this government to actually deliver.

Now perhaps in talking about this issue I'll again be accused by my political opponents of being captive to traditional ideas. Perhaps an ordered classroom where teachers have authority is an old notion. But it is a fundamental policy, a visionary idea, and a necessity for giving every Australian child the chance to reach their full potential.

In education, as in any area of public policy, the test of a policy is its implementation, not its flashy title.

I would like to talk more - on My Schools website, National Partnerships, League tables, the NAPLAN and supporting disadvantaged students. But rather than spending all of my allocated time speaking to you, I would be glad to take questions and engage in a conversation with you.