Page 2870 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2018
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However, students in the same year of school differ widely in their stages of learning and development. The most advanced students typically begin and end the school year five to six years ahead of the least advanced students. In this sense, students are not equal; they have very different levels of attainment and so benefit from different learning opportunities and challenges.
If the rationale for spending $17 million on laptops was to ensure equity, the minister has missed an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of disadvantaged students here in the ACT. Equality of resources is not the same as equity of educational outcomes, and it can never be, for the very reason that every child is different and every student has a different starting point.
The latest Gonski paper provides a more meaningful measure. Dr Gonski suggested that the aim in education should be to ensure that every child had a year’s growth in learning each year. That does not mean each child starting at the same point at the beginning of the school year, with or without a laptop; it means that wherever they start from, they should have at least 12 months growth in learning over the school year.
The ACT has a right to be proud of its education system. It has delivered quality education to generations of students. However, it is not perfect. I fear that under this government we are becoming complacent, reliant on our good fortune in having the right circumstances to boast a good education system, compared to the rest of the country, no matter what this government does or fails to do.
The minister is quick to accuse members on this side of the chamber of talking down our schools if ever we dare to highlight her and her government’s shortcomings. However, Trevor Cobbold, from Save Our Schools, an unashamedly pro-government, anti-non-government school advocate, in an article in the lead-up to the 2016 election, had no such reticence. He highlighted the fact that many disadvantaged students in the ACT were not achieving national minimum standards in literacy and numeracy. He pointed out that in 2015 over 25 per cent of year 9 students from low-educated parents did not achieve the national minimum writing standard; about 20 per cent did not achieve the spelling and grammar and punctuation standards; and 14 to 15 per cent did not achieve the reading and numeracy standards. Over 40 per cent of year 9 Indigenous students did not achieve the writing standard; about 20 per cent did not achieve the spelling and grammar and punctuation standards; 15 per cent did not achieve the numeracy standard; and 13 per cent did not achieve the reading standard.
There are very large achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Year 9 students from low-educated parents are about two to three years behind students from highly educated parents in all subjects, and Indigenous students are about 3½ to four years behind students from highly educated parents in all subjects. So the one-size-fits-all approach that appears to underpin current thinking will not work.
What do we do about it? Chromebooks for students are but one resource, just as a desk, a chair and a place to put them might be. It does not deliver education equity
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