Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Volume 16 Issue 1 Article 1

1991

The Eclipse of Equality of Opportunity?

Simon Marginson Federated Australian University Staff Association

Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte

Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons

Recommended Citation Marginson, S. (1991). The Eclipse of Equality of Opportunity?. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 16(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.1991v16n1.1

This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol16/iss1/1 Australian Journal of Teacher Education

THE ECLIPSE OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY?

Simon Marginson Research Officer Federated Australian University Staff Association

ABSTRACT The issues involved are central ones; for teachers, for those who train teachers and for those who Equality of opportunity has been the most study Australian education. Much education important organising principle in education policy and politics is fought out around respective policies in postwar Australia. Equality of claims about equality and about education's opportunity was central to the expansion of economic contribution. This tension is endemic to publicly-funded education: the promise of education as a social process. Education is about upward social mobility through education had open-ended human development, but education broad appeal. Equality of opportunity objectives is also funded because it is meant to build a better are now being displaced by the newer and more labour force .. limited concept of market equity. Equality of opportunity usually implies equality of the Teachers face equality/economy tensions on a educational resources provided to each child, and daily basis. To what extent should the teacher's sometimes goes further to mean positive work be directed to all pupils in common? To discrimination in favour of the disadvantaged. what extent should the teacher spend time with However, equity is usually understood only as those students who appear most capable, most the right to participate in education. receptive to teaching and learning and likely to make the best use of their education? At a system Whereas economic objections used to work in level, to what extent should we focus on raising tandem with equality of opportunity policies, the universal standards - and to what extent should two are 110W often in contradiction. Further, the we concentrate on a minority of 'gifted' students failure of the older equality policies to deliver on identified for higher achievement? their promises has partly eroded people's support for the equality of opportunity perspective, Ultimately the shifting policy balances between especially middle-class support. There is a equality objectives and economic objectives affect growing emphasis on relative individual everyone working in education. They affect what advantage through education. This new policy we are required to do, and they affect what is environment threatens to result in significantly possible. Policy objectives are matters of day-to­ greater inequality of opportunity. day pragmatics - part of the conditions of possibility of our work - but they also connect to THE ECLIPSE OF EQUALITY OF the deeper level of commitment to that work. As OPPORTUNITY? policy objectives change, teaching practice tends to change (although not usually as much). Introduction: equality versus economics Teacher training may also change. New policy objectives may suggest that different sorts of In Australian education there has been a long­ people Should be recruited as teachers. standing tension between the policy objective of equality of opportunity and economic policy This article argues that we are now experiencing objectives that governments have sought to a major shift in the governing policy objectives in implement within the education sector, such as Australian education, affecting both schools and those related to efficiency and to the development post-school education. This shift results from a of education's contribution to economic growth. new resolution of the equality / economy tensions, one less favourable to broad equality objectives The equality / economy conflict is by no means an than before. The paper begins by outlining the absolute one, and at times both sets of policies nature of that shift. It then goes on to explain the have led to the same practical conclusions and causes and the dynamics of the change, draWing have been implemented harmoniously. At other on recent developments in Australian education. times equality objectives and economic objectives have been in conflict. Generally, this has led to the modification of one or other sets of objectives: one has usually won out over the other.

Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 Australian Journal of Teacher Education Australian Journal of Teacher Education

From equality of opportunity to market equity But unlike most of the human capital economists, ublic discussion of education, equality of mean that all students individually reach the for Karmel the argument for educational ~pportunity is bein? reduced to the m?re limite.d same educational level. It means a system of One person who knew more than most about the expansion did not stop there. To him the and market-specifIc concept of equity, and IS formal education in which the educational equality / economy tensions was Professor Peter overriding objective was not economic becoming marginal. As in the 1960s education for achievement of students cannot be distinguished Karmel. Karmel himself was an economist but productivity or economic growth, but the national economic interest is occupying centre­ on the basis of income and wealth, class, sex, he was also an educator. The founding Vice­ equalisation of educational opportunity. At stage but, unlike the 1960s, it is no longer coupled national origin, school type and geographical Chancellor of Flinders University, he became the bottom, he saw the case for education as a with a strong version of equality of opportunity. location, etc. Therefore equality of outcomes principal national education policy-maker as democratic one rather than an economic one: The tensions between equality of opportunity and serves as a test of, and a precondition of, equality chair of the Interim Committee for the Schools education for human capital are being resolved in of opportunity: Commission (1973), the Universities Commission You will say here is homo economicus in his favour of the latter. And the human capital is between 1971 and 1977 and the Tertiary most extreme form. Here is a fellow who increasingly to be privately funded - government The test of whether equality of opportunity Education Commission (1977 to 1982), and the measures the value of education by its effect on spending on education fell to 4.9 per cent of GDP existed would then be that those going on to Quality of Education Review Committee in 1984 national production and its rate ofgrowth. May in 1987-88 (ABS 1982). A greater proportion of higher education were drawn from all groups in and 1985. I therefore say straight out that I do not hold that education and effort is being privately financed, the same proportion as each group was the main virtue of education reposes in its through school fees, the HECS, postgraduate fees represented in the population. On 18 May 1962 in Melbourne, Karmel- then a economic consequences. Quite the reverse. I and sale of services to companies. This means (Karmel Report 1973: 17) professor of economics at the University of should tonight advocate a greater educational that, to a greater degree, the benefits of education Adelaide - delivered what was to become an effort in Australia, even if its sole economic go to those who can pay for them. This increases Unless there is equality of outcomes at the end of influential address on Some economic aspects of consequence is to reduce national productivity inequalities in the distribution of education. schooling there cannot be equality of opportunity education. Karmel was responding to the then by withholding more young people from the in entrance to higher and further education. new and important arguments of the human workforce for more years. I should do this since This is not simply a matter of changes to capital economists, who claimed that there should I believe that democracy implies making government policies. There has also been a shift Equality of outcomes has usually been seen as be a major expansion of education on the grounds educational opportunities as equal as possible in the popular mood. An increasing number of outcomes in terms of either learning achievement that education directly created economic growth and that the working of democracy depends on parents and students now believe that investment or the level of credential achieved - mostly the (Schultz 1960, 1961; Denison 1962; Becker 1975). It increasing the number of citizens with the in private schooling or in fee-based postgraduate latter. (There are other outcomes of schooling, was assumed by most economists and policy capacity for clear and informed thought on courses in the way to maximise the benefits of such as social and cultural experiences. These makers - although not all (Friedman 1962) - that political and social issues. education. The competitive struggle for relative outcomes are important, albeit immeasurable, but such an expansion would have to be funded by (KarmeI1962: 4-5). advantage through education is based on the are not usually considered in the context of governments because reliance on private finance object of inequality of opportunity, not equality of equality policies.) would result in a level of demand for education In the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, this was opportunity, and this struggle corrodes the older that would fall short of society's needs. the philosophy of many of the teachers and principle. Conditions required by equality of opportunity administrators working in the expanding public Karmel agreed with the conclusion of the human system of schooling, higher education and further To explain the change that is now taking place we When the implications of equality of opportunity capital. theorists. He said that the expansion of education. Equality of opportunity justified the need to look at that change in its historical policies are followed through in full, they require educahon was a high priority. He noted that in development of' individualised teaching context. But first, what do we mean by equality in far-reaching changes to education. international terms, Australia's participation rate strategies, the recognition of special needs and the education? and Australia's level of spending on education differentiation of the teaching service into The commonsense assumption is that equality of were both too low. He also agreed with some of specialist positions, the demands for reforms to Definitions opportunity requires "equal, and, in the main, the human capital reasoning. He endorsed the systems of assessment and tertiary selection, as uniform provision" in all institutions within a claims that education could contribute to well as the growth of enrolments in the post­ Here equality of opportunity refers to a system of common system (Karmel Report 1973: 16). improvements in economic productivity, and said compulsory years. formal education in which students are However, students come to formal education that international comparisons showed that there differentiated only on the basis of educational affected by prior inequalities, implying the need was a "high correlation between the educational Equality of opportunity - understood mostly in merit. In a system based on equality of for positive discrimination: "More equal efforts of different countries and their annual terms of access to careers, to opportunities for opportunity, competition between students is outcomes from schooling require unequal ra!es of production" (KarmeI1962: 3), although upward social mobility - also fitted well with seen as "fair" in the sense that income and wealth, treatment for children" (Karmel: 22). More thIS was not conclusive proof of a causal popular aspirations. In the long postwar boom sex, national and cultural background, school fundamentally, as the Karmel Report pointed out relationship. Later in the speech he became more from 1945 to 1975 there were widespread and type, geographical location, etc, play no part in "factors in the culture of the school, its 'hidden emphatic, asserting that: growing expectations about the education as the deciding students' fates. All students are seen to curriculum', favour children of some route to better jobs and a better life. Between have the same opportunity to succeed. Success is backgrounds and discriminate against others" ... I believe that in Australia we can and should 1950-51 and 1975-76 government spending in based on the unity of prior natural "ability" (Karmel 1973: 21). This breaks down the spend much more on education than we are education in Australia rose from 1.3 per cent to 5.7 (usually understood as an individual rather than assumption that the production of educational presently doing. Education has directly per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (Karmel a social characteristic) and hard work. It is merit is culturally neutral and brings the very benefici~l effects on production and the rate of 1966: 4-6; ABS 1982). assumed that ability is evenly .distributed by emphasis on "individual achievement" into economic growth, so that there is a sense in social group (Karmel Report 1973: 16-17). doubt, as the Karmel Report in fact which it pays for itself by future production, just The situation has now fundamentally changed. acknowledged (KarmeI1973: 21). as any ordinary investment in capital equipment Investment in human capital is on the Federal Equality of opportunity should be distinguished does. Government's policy agenda. But in educational from equality of outcomes, but the two concepts (KarmeI1962:19) policy-making, in the politics of education and in are compatible. Equality of outcomes does not

2 Vol. 16 No. 1, 1991 Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 3 Australian Joumal of Teacher Education ------Australian Journal of Teacher Education ~r1 It I Limits of the 1973 to 1975 equality policies abolished tertiary fees and established needs­ the people working in the professional 1960s human capital claims concerning the economic benefits of education - claims that based student allowances - "merely", because occupations. At this point consensus on equality of these measures equalised financial conditions looked foolish after the negative economic opportunity policies has usually broken down. In only for those already admitted to higher Disillusionment with the old equality of growth of the mid-1970s (Marginson 1989). mainstream policies, the equality of outcomes test education. opportunity goals has mostly been modified in order to evade the The declining labour market value of credentials, radical implications of the equality goal. The It was only later, when some colleges of advanced The publicly-funded expansion of post­ and increasing competition, exacerbated the drive highwater mark of educational equality policies education began to open up non-academic entry compulsory education was associated with for relative advantage through education - in Australia was in the 1973 period of the to mature age students, that the fuller benefits of equality of opportunity policies distributed the attendance at a high status private school, the Whitlam ALP government. Nonetheless, that the abolition of fees were realised. cultural benefits of education more widely and, highest possible Year 12 score, entry to the most government stopped short of what its Karmel one suspects, more equally. But equality of favoured higher education courses - as the means Committee called "the doctrinaire pursuit of But the high status high income-earning outcomes, as measured by the places in higher of realising social and occupational aspirations. equal average outcomes for all social groups" professional training courses, such as medicine education distributed to students from each socio­ (KarmeI1973: 23). The final formulation of the and law, continued to select students on the basis economic category, was not achieved. (There was "Individualist egalitarianism" had been split in Karmel Report was limited and ambiguous: of Year 12 scores, without modification. These more visible progress in relation to female two and parents felt forced to move one way or courses continued to offer a disproportionate participation, which reached the level of 50 per the other. When the problem became posed as The Committee values the right of every child, share of places to private school students, using cent of students by 1987.) sticking to principles (keeping the child in public within practicable limits, to be prepared through arguments about standards and university schooling) or doing the best for the child (going schooling for full participation in society, both autonomy as shields against equality reforms. But perhaps more important in fostering private), for a growing number of parents the for his own and for society's benefit. disillusionment with the old policies was that the choice became almost inevitable. More and more Support for equality of opportunity rewards of participation in education turned out to people believed that they could only realise the ... there are good reasons for attempting to be less than expected. Labour market individual goals fostered in the equality of compensate for some extent through schooling Limited and contradictory as they were, the opportunities for graduates are determined not opportunity era by pursuing unequal opportllnities for unequal out-of-school situations in order to equality of educational opportunity policies had a by education itself, but by the labour markets. through investment in private education. ensure that the child's overall condition of powerful popular appeal in the 1960s and early After the international recession of 1974-1975, the upbringing is as free of restriction due to 1970s. They were crucial to the election of the number of jobs was growing more slowly at a Government funding policies encouraged the circumstances as public action through the Whitlam Government in 1972. time when the number of those with educational growth of private schooling (especially in the last schools can make it. credentials was increasing strongly. Between the three years of the Fraser Government), providing (Karmel Report 1973: 11) As noted, these policies connected on one hand mid 1960s and the mid 1980s the number of the sites where these ambitions could be fostered, with economic arguments about the need to graduates at bachelor level increased almost for an increasing number of middle-class families. Although it set up a common administrative broaden and deepen the skill base, and on the seven times while the total labour force increased It had become clear that educational selection was framework for Federal funding, linking grants to other with popular desires to share knowledge little over one third. The proportion of the full­ not socially and culturally neutral, destroying the private schools to the average resources of public and cultural resources once monopolised by the time work force holding post-school ethical basis of equality of opportunity policies. schools, the Whitlam Government failed to upper middle class. Most importantly, they qualifications rose from 24.6 per cent in 1969 to In any case, in the environment of hyper­ establish one common public system of schooling. offered the new prospect of upward social 49.6 per cent in 1989. The proportion holding competition, parents felt impelled to find a way of The elite private schools were tolerated within a mobility to the many children of the postwar degrees rose from 3.2 per cent to 11.2 per cent over-determining educational selection, in order dual public/private structure of schooling. These baby-boom generation. For the parents of these (ABS 1984, ABS 1989). to maximise their child's opportunities. schools continued to operate selective entry children, hopes of a better social world and a policies in favour of wealthier families, and hence strong sense of justice were conflated with With the number of workers holding educational The "inequality is inevitable" myth were able to marshal superior resources and offer aspirations for individual futures: it was an qualifications now more plentiful, the credential apparently better prospects of progression to educational world typified by "egalitarian level for entry into many jobs rose and the pay Popular opinion was therefore receptive to the higher education. Their position was further individualism" (Kapferer 1989: 123). For social accruing to a constant level of credential fell in arguments run from 1984 onwards by ALP strengthened by Government funding reformers, equality of educational opportunity relative (and sometimes in absolute) terms. Finance Minister Senator Peter Walsh and (Margins on 1985). While these schools would lead to a society in which placement Whereas in 1969 a degree holder aged from 25 to Employment, Education and Training Minister maintained their independence it was not would be based only on individual merit, not on 34 years earned 79 per cent more than the average John Dawkins, in support of the reintroduction of possible even to obtain equal resources (material inherited privilege. It was the route to the worker in the age group, by 1981 this differential tertiary fees. and cultural) in each school, let alone a abolition of class and inequality. For ambitious had fallen to 24 per cent (Marginson, redistribution of advantage in favour of the parents, it was their children's route to the forthcoming) . Walsh, Dawkins and others argued along lines poorest schools. professions. popularised by Milton Friedman that free higher In a real sense the value of educational education constituted a regressive income The Whitlam Government's tertiary education During the post-war economic boom and the qualifications - their value to employees, and transfer. As the Government Committee set up to reforms also fell short of opportunity. Although growth of services and government employment, therefore their value to the holders of the propose a new user payment was to put the students continued to complete secondary school significant upward mobility did occur. For qualifications had fallen substantially. argument in 1988: on an unequal basis by social group, the example, the growth of teaching itself provided Education was more necessary than ever for Government failed to open up special and many working class, female and country students participation in the middle and upper echelons of The fundamental inequity in our present system additional routes to higher education for students with the opportunity to enter the professions. But the labour market, but it delivered less than ever offinancing higher education is that a small and from disadvantaged groups - let alone abolish from the 1970s on the number of graduates at before. The resulting perception that "standards privileged section of the community who benefit traditional academic selection. It merely each level of education was growing faster than were falling" coincided with doubts about the from access to higher education make no direct

4 Vol. 16 No. 1, 1991 Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 5 Australian Journal of Teacher Education Australian JOllmal of Teacher Education

contributions to their tuition costs. The bulk of The present policy environment: market d economic utilitarianism (instrumentalism) some social groups. When the market equity the funding falls on Pay as You Earn taxpayers, equity an the new means/ends coupling in education perspective becomes dominant, the old idea that are h . the majority of whom are middle to low income olicy. The market has tremendous purc ase In governments should intervene to create equality earners and who will only receive in return the The new concept of equity in education is quite ~ducation because of its a.scenda~cy in the of educational resources received by all students, valuable but amorphous benefit of living in a different from the old concept of equality of to enable a fair and objective educational b ader economic and SOCial pollcy debate, well educated society. opportunity. Hhoughro market e d ucatlOn . is . per h aps Iess competition to take place, is necessarily set aside. (Wran Report 1988: 15). :ttractive at a popular level than was equality of Equality of opportunity could be measured by opportunity in its heyday. Equity in this sense does not require equality of If this argument had been raised in the late reference to outcomes. Equity is harder to pin outcomes by social group. The market discourse 1960s/early 1970s, the policy response most down. Its meaning is more subjective and less Limits of policies based on equity assumes inequalities are individual rather than consistent with the then dominant policy of quantitative. Equity is usually used in terms of its social, and they are both natural and inevitable. equality of opportunity would have been to dictionary meaning of justice and fairness. A In the Federal Government's view, equity is about In this framework, the quality of the participation propose measures to radically alter the socio­ wide variety of systems can be just or fair, access to or participation in 1?ost-compu~sor.y achieved by each student is determined by the economic composition of higher education. depending on what has become normalised as education. All have a right to thiS access, which is student's own ability and / or ability to pay for Indeed, the abolition of fees was sold (wrongly) as fair. seen as a key determinant of social justice. In fact education. Success or failure in and through precisely such a measure. But in the 1980s the the Government has redefined poverty as lack of education is seen to be a function of individual Walsh/Dawkins argument fitted in with a Equity can therefore vary somewhat in its use. educational qualifications (Dawkins 1988a). behaviour. Therefore equity policies are about the widespread perception that inequality of When some progressivist education reformers are rights of individuals, not the rights of groups. education opportunity was normal and natural. using it, the term can still be interchangeable with But the economic argument for equity is probably That was a commonsense response to the the sharp end of equality of opportunity. When more important than the democratic argument In the longer run, it may be that what happens to disillusioning experience of the past equality of market economists are using the term it takes on (Dawkins 1988b: 53). Equity policies are seen to social groups will drop off this policy age~d.a. opportunity policies, and the increasing the more limited and opposing meaning of the maximise the skill base: the Federal Government This would be consistent with the parallel Shift In competitiveness of both education and the labour right to invest in the education market - equal has returned those 1960s economic readings of human capital thinking: in human capital theory, markets. rights to participate in a market in which social equality of opportunity which stressed the need education is now seen largely as a private benefit. inequalities are natural, are sanctioned and are to take up all available talent. Indeed, the The old 1960s assumption that the social benefits Further, the claim that the egalitarian reforms of legitimated. difference is that now all students are potential of education considerably exceed the private the past had failed was a powerful method of skilled workers (OECD 1987) and therefore all benefits - providing a strong case for government disposing of any and every such egalitarian The substitution of "equity" has blunted the should participate in post-compulsory education. intervention - has now been discarded by the neo­ reform in the future. earlier equality of opportunity policies and classical economists (Marginson 1989). facilitated the switch from the progressivist However, equity is silent on what it is that they It was only a short step to the selling of market education reformers' idea of equity to the market are participating in. Perhaps because equity Some have argued that to the extent that policies such as the return of fees which really did economists' idea of equity. Government policy derives more from higher education than schools education becomes produced on a market basis it make inequality of opportunity inevitable, but discourse increasingly leans towards the latter (and therefore does not take into account a might be more equitable for opportunities to be appeared to be more realistic. Further, if it was approach. The main aspects of the mainstream tradition of equalised institutions), contemporary distributed on the basis of capacity and assumed that the existing inequalities were here Governmen t / media / adminis tra tion equity policies do not require the different forms willingness to invest in education, rather than to stay, user pays policies could claim to be fairer understanding of equity are that it is of participation to be equal in value. To rep~at, educational merit. This is the view of the free than the alternative. individualist, that it is about access to education equity stops at the point of entr~ to the educa.tlO.n market-orientated Centre for Policy Studies, but not what happens after access has been market, and in the neo-classlcal market it is which carries the market logic considerably There was a certain sleight of hand in the achieved, and that its principal purpose is inefficient to interfere with the distribution of further than does the Federal Government. As Government's construction of this "inequality is economic rationality rather than social justice - resources, or the process of production. the Centre put it in 1987: inevitable" myth. The Labor Ministers never except to the extent that social justice is seen as actually put it as boldly as this, continuing to economically rational. This is a very limited conception of equality. Meritocratic selection is based on the profess a commitment to access or fairness. And After all, we share with the Packers and the assumption that those performing well at the they had to sidestep evidence that there had been Equity is also less important than was equality of Murdochs the right to enter the share market and year 12 examination are more likely to succeed certain improvements in equality of opportunity: opportunity. It is no longer as central to securing buy $100 million worth of shares on the stock in, and make better use o/tertiary education ... more women students, more mature age students, social consent for the system and it no longer exchange. The only obstacle is the availability of An alternative method of rationing entry is by some increase in the proportion of students threatens to reform the internal distribution of the finance and the information with which to the charging of fees. Willingness to pay the free whose fathers were manual workers (HERT resources between institutions, or between choose the best buy. then replaces exceeding the cut-off score as the 1985). Nonetheless, these obstacles were students by social group. eligibility criterion. The former is probably overcome. The debate was won, and it was Because equity does not seek the equalisation of better than the latter as an indicator of crucial in displacing Labor's traditional reform Equality of opportunity was once coupled with the conditions under which opportunities are motivation: one does not outlay, say $6,000 for commitment to equality of opportunity, ushering economic objectives as the joint raison d'etre of taken up, it does not necessarily imply a need for a year's enrolment without either a genuine in the new concept of equity and clearing the way policy. Now equity is definitely subordinate to policies of positive discrimination. It does not interest in the course or a genuine desire for the for the installation of market exchange in post­ the instrumentalist economic discourse. The new require equal capacity to buy. It does not require qualification it leads to. Since motivation and school education. organising principle emerging to take the place of an examination of, or compensation for, cultural ability (as measured by matriculation score) are equality of opportunity is the market. The market specificity in the curriculum and the system of substitutable over a substantial range in most student assessment and selection, to the extent that this cultural specificity discriminates against

6 Vol. 16 No. 1, 1991 Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 7 Australian Joumal of Teacher Education Australian Joumal of Teaci/er Education

tertiary studies it is possible that a better conscious and identifiable actions, by One strategy would be propo~e measur~s to bring Committee on Higher Education Funding. Report motivated but less able group would perform as governments and by market agents. about greater equality b~ SOCIal gro.uP 111 entry to of the Committee on higher education funding, satisfactorily, or better, than the converse. the high-income professlOns - medlc111e, law, etc. Canberra, April 1988. Committee chaired (Freebairn et al. 1987: 108-109) There are a number of implications of this This is the heart of the equality debate. (This by Neville Wran. - downgrading of concern about equality, and the hange might result in a fall in the average Implications of this new environment associated growth of market exchange in ~arnings in those pr?~essions, ?ut that would be Dawkins, The Hon J. Commonwealth Minister education. If the trends continue: no bad thing.) PolICles to bnng about greater for Employment, Education and Training. As noted, in recent years there has been a return equality of access .to the professions would (1988). Chairman's opening statement to to emphasis on the economic benefits of 1. Inequalities of opportunity, and inequalities undoubtedly face reSIstance - the ~e.bate about t~e the OECD Conference on education and the investment in education (OECD 1987). Unlike the of outcomes by social group, will increase Victorian VCE shows that. But It IS an essentIal economy, Paris. 19605, fiscal policy has shifted to smaller markedly. step, one the 1970s equality reforms failed to take, government, and there is no longer the concern seriously undermining their credibility. Dawkins, The Hon J. Commonwealth Minister for expressed by Karmel in 1962 that private demand 2. Inequalities have always been inadequately Employment, Education and Training for education might be insufficient. This is monitored and measured (for example, We also need to promote more discussion and (1988b), Higher Education: a policy statement, because the penalties of leaving education early there are no good longitudinal data on the debate about these policy issues. The way our Canberra: Australian Government are now very obvious. Thus governments no socioeconomic composition of students in education develops is a function of the work of Publishing Service. longer need to provide equal educational higher education). If concern about equality every administrator, every teacher, and eve~y opportunities in order to maximise participation. slips far enough, it will not be measured at teacher trainer. It is necessary that teachers 111 Freebairn, J., Porter, M., and Walsh, c., (1987). Inferior opportunities are taken up, because they all and we will lose an essential reference training become able to talk about equality and Spending and taxing: Australian reform are better than non-participation. There are limits point from which to judge the education about markets in education. These debates are options. Sydney: Alien and Unwin. to an increase in educational participation on system. likely to become increasingly controversial, and Published in association with the Centre of these terms, although these limits have not yet there is much at stake. Policy Studies National Priorities Project. been reached. 3. If capacity to pay more completely rules entry, the contradictions inherent in the new The Australian education system of the future is Friedman, M. (1962). 'The role of government in Thus - providing participation rates continue to concept of equity will become apparent. in our own hands, and in the hands of parents education', in Capitalism and Freedom. rise - the Government no longer sees reforms of Equity assumes universal participation on and others of goodwill. To adapt a slogan often Chicago: University of Chicago Press, "equity" as central to the national interest. The an unequal basis. But as supply and used in talk about Governments, we get the Chicago, pp. 85-107. reality is that if the Federal Government's explicit demand are brought into line, the high­ education that we deserve. policies on "equity" were dropped tomorrow this demand high-fee areas will become priced Hanushek, E. (1986). 'The economics of would not make much difference to educational out of the reach of most people. The schooling: production and efficiency in practices except to signify the decisive defeat of opportunity costs factors and loan This article is based in part on a paper public schools', Journal of Economic the social reform perspective in education. It discounting periods will become too large. presented to the Australian and New Literature, Vol. 25, September, pp. 1141-1177. would not mean a major change in material Significant areas of professional training Zealand Comparative and International provision. Few resources have been committed to will become exclusive, monopolised by Education Society (ANZCIES) Conference Higher Education Round Table, (1985). Why the current equity policies, partly due to the small groups which are protected by high on Education, equity and national interests, would fees create ullequality?, pamphlet, successful popularisation of the flawed argument fee barriers. (So much for rights of entry.) University of Melbourne, December 1989. Canberra. that there is no proven link between increased spending on education and improved outcomes, 4. Remedial programs, bridging programs Interim Committee for the Australian Schools including social outcomes (for an influential and other forms of special assistance for REFERENCES Commission (Karmel Report 1973). Schools version of this argument about the 'futility' of certain categories of students will be ill Australia, Canberra: Australian resources, see Hanushek 1986). But the bottom weakened or phased out. Individuals will Australian Bureau of Statistics (1982 and later Government Publishing Service., line of current policy is that ultimately the be expected to take responsibility for their years). Expenditure in education, Australia, Committee chaired by Peter Karmel. educational market, untouched by government own educational success, i.e. realise the Catalogue Number 5510.0, Canberra. hands, will produce the fairest outcome. value of their own education investments. Kapferer, (1989), 'Schools for the state: the Australian Bureau of Statistics (1989). Labour force complementarity of public and private One of the most serious problems of an Teacher training in the new environment status and educational attainment, Catalogue education', in S. Walker and L. Barton educational system in which the market is the Number 6235.0, Canberra. (editors). Politics and the processes of chief organising principle - and we are moving How do we respond to these developments? schooling, Milton Keynes: Open University towards such a system - is that it places beyond Policy trends have a good deal of inertia and, like Australian Bureau of Statistics (1984). Social Press, pp. 100-125. the reach of policy those educational inequalities ocean liners, it is difficult to turn them around indicators 1984, Catalogue Number 4101.0, which are the consequence of deliberate human quickly. But my personal view is that it is both Canberra. Karmel, P. (1962), 'Some economic aspects of actions. It makes them into matters of economics desirable and possible to shift policy back education', the Buntille Oration, Australian rather than politics - and therefore outside the towards greater concern about equality in and Becker, G. (1975). Human capital: a theoretical and College of Education, Canberra 18 May ambit of governments, which by definition must through education. It would be unfortunate if the empirical analysis, with special reference to 1962. Melbourne: Cheshire. refrain from interference in the 'free' market. ethics of Wall Street were allowed to gain mme education. New York: Columbia University Thus, grossly unequal outcomes are made to look ground in what is meant to be a public service, a Press. First edition published in 1964. Karmel, P. (1966), 'Some arithmetic of education', like they are 'natural' and inevitable. But such social process committed to the common good. Melbourne Studies in Education 1966, outcomes are not inevitable. They are the result of We need a renewed commitment to equality of pp. 3-34. treatment in the way we educate.

8 Vol. 16 No. t 1991 Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 9 Australimi Joumal of Teacher Education Australiall /oumal of Teacller EduClltioll

Marginson, S. (1985), The collapse of the 1973 PREFERRED MODELS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION Karmel consensus: ATF Research Papers Number 9, December 1985, Australian A WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE Teachers' Federation: Melbourne. Collette Tayler Marginson, S. (forthcoming), 'The politics of post­ Edith Cowan University compulsory curricula' in Christine Deer and Terri Seddon (editors), A post-compulsory curriculum for all students, Melbourne: ACER. INTRODUCTION wide changes to teacher education g~nerally need to be instituted in full knowledge of the scope and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Early childhood teacher education in Australia diversity of teaching in the early childhood field Development, (1987), Structural adjustment continues to be a topic of contention. The erosion and with recognition of the specialized needs of and economic performance, Paris: OECD. of specialized early childhood courses during the teachers of young children employed in a wider early 1980's was indicated by Briggs (1984) in the work-place than the school. Early Childhood Schultz, T. (1960), 'Capital formation by face of then new shared structures with primary Education nationally, spans child care, education', Journal of Political Economy, Vol. teacher education. Restructuring of courses at that kindergarten and the early primary years. 68, No. 6, December 1960, pp. 571-583. time was brought about by amalgamations of many higher education institutions which Catering effectively for ,my group in teacher Schultz, T. (1961), 'Investment in human capital', provided courses for teachers. At that time, the education requires giving attention to the specific American Economic Review, Vol. 51, 1961, tertiary education sector began what has become contexts in which the group will operate and pp. 1-17. the most significant post-war re-arrangement of linking the programme to the dominant higher education Australia has witnessed. Course philosophies in the profession - early childhood, developments in 1984 were illustrative of the primary, or secondary. In particular, beliefs about kinds of amalgamations which were taking place the ways children of different ages think and and attention was on "rationalization" of many learn and beliefs about what constitutes courses within the college sector as it moved appropriate educational provision for children in towards university designation. early childhood, primary and secondary years should impact on the design and implementation To-day, early childhood teacher education courses of teacher education programmes for teachers are considerably different from those described working in these sectors. by Briggs in 1984. On a national scale, connections with primary teaching courses have altered and This paper outlines the features of early much of the character of traditional early childhood teacher education considered childhood preparation is again apparent. important by early childhood teacher educators in Western Australia, where current courses differ However, the preparation of early childhood in marked ways from those of other Australian teachers in each State and Territory is now being States and Territories. Included are several issues challenged by new moves to restructure teacher for consideration, as these pertain to all education in this country and to develop a nation­ Australian early childhood teacher education wide teaching profession (K-12) with national programmes and must be debated in the process teacher registration, and national salary of developing national responses about benchmarks and classifications. Early childhood appropriate directions and provisions for teacher education in this exercise is subsumed in Australian early childhood teacher education. a teacher education model focused on the school The tensions between currentreform plans (AEC, as work-place. 1990) and present Australian early childhood programmes are also illustrated in some cases by The Australian Education Council Report on reference to data collected by the writer (Tayler, Teacher Education (1990) advocated directions for 1990). pre-service teaching courses which differ in notable ways from the style and composition of Early childhood teacher education in Western the present Australian Early Childhood Australia (1990) programmes observed recently (Tayler, 1990). Now more than ever, is the time to document Because of known differences in early childhood de.arly the reasoning behind certain present early programmes across the country, some attention is chIldhood course attributes and to consider given first to highlighting factors about the Critically what constitutes a sound preparation for Western Australian programmes which differ in early childhood specialists. National, system- substantial ways from early childhood

10 Vol. 16 No. 1, 1991 Vol. 16, No. 1,1991 11