Opinion: COAG Reform Council's Snapshot

This article was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald in October 2013.

Australia’s latest report card on educational achievement makes for depressing reading.

The COAG Reform Council’s snapshot of the last five years of Australia’s education performance shows a significant minority of young people – those who are the most vulnerable and from financially disadvantaged backgrounds – are missing out on the education they deserve.

It shows large gaps in achievement between young people from low and high socio-economic families across all levels of testing.

The gap in Year 12 attainment – or equivalent – between the two groups remains close to 20 per cent and hasn’t moved in five years.

And while there has been an increase in the number of young Aboriginal people completing Year 12 or equivalent, the gap compared with non-Aboriginal youth is still more than 30 per cent.

After leaving school, 41.7 per cent of young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were not fully engaged in work or study, compared to 17.4 per cent among their more affluent peers – larger than the gap in 2006.

And among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, literacy and numeracy haven’t shown any improvement while Years 7 and 9 reading levels have actually declined.

Hardly the sort of stuff to make you feel optimistic about the future, is it?

Australia’s prosperity and social cohesion relies on all young people receiving the very best education.

Stagnant literacy and numeracy achievement among disadvantaged young Australians and very limited improvement in the large gaps in educational performance between the haves and have nots – those aren’t the hallmarks of a fair and prosperous nation.

If we keep down the path we’re on, more and more young people with poor educational outcomes are likely to experience unemployment and poorer health outcomes in adulthood – and rely more heavily on income support payments – something which will create an additional burden on them, their families and Australia as a whole.

And many thousands of disadvantaged young people will be unable to find work in Australia’s 21st century economy.
That’s unacceptable.

As Australia’s largest provider of educational support to disadvantaged young people and their families, we welcome governments’ bi-partisan commitment to needs-based school funding.

This is a key starting point for turning around our current situation around.

But getting vulnerable young Australians off to the right start isn’t just about arriving at a fairer education funding model – important as that is.
It’s how we spend our educational resources that will ultimately make the difference.

Recent studies have shown that education funding has increased over the past two decades with limited return in terms of improved literacy and numeracy.

One area where funds could make a significant difference is expanding successful school-community partnership models that help support the retention and achievement of children in education.

In the communities where The Smith Family works, schools can struggle to recruit Principals, teachers and support staff, and there are often a scarcity of services and opportunities available to children and their families – or they’re not coordinated in a way to get the best results.

All of this places an enormous burden on schools.

Schools need to be supported to do what they do best – to teach – not chase down new funding streams; not try and co-ordinate the range of programs and services that might help.

Organisations like The Smith Family have a great deal of experience playing the role of independent broker – acting as an independent facilitator between a school community and other local stakeholders – to address issues within disadvantaged schools.

We’ve found these partnerships assist in identifying children and young people who need intensive help at an early stage, provide quicker access to services and increase the engagement and participation in school by young people.

We run four such school-community partnerships around the country but it’s not nearly enough. There needs to be more of them to have a deeper impact.

And finally, with so many disadvantaged school leavers not in any training, further education or work there is clear need to lift our game in preparing disadvantaged young Australians for their future careers.

We have to understand that the low skilled jobs young Australians traditionally accessed have either dried up or wax and wane with our economic fortunes.

If young people aren’t staying until the end of Year 12 they need to attain an equivalent qualification to improve their chances of gaining work in an extremely tight youth labour market.

The Smith Family has had enormous success in matching adult mentors with young people – from their early teens – to open up career horizons and create pathways to future employment.

Many of the young people we assist grow up surrounded by intergenerational unemployment – in their families and communities.

Matching a young person up with a mentor who is able to tap into a young person’s interests and support them into a career pathway can pay extraordinary dividends.

Turning these numbers around is a long-term process; we’re not going to see quick results.

But if we want to look young vulnerable and financially disadvantaged Australian kids in the eye and tell them we did the very best for their future then we need to start addressing the obvious shortcomings of our education system. It’s in our national interest.

Dr. Lisa O'Brien, CEO, The Smith Family