Policy Reforms on Australian Education System

Question: Discuss about thePolicy Reforms on Australian Education System. Answer: Introduction For nearly four decades now, the improvement of schools strategies and the educational reforms have been underway. The Australian education is being faced by several seemingly intractable problems. According to PISA (2006), such problems arise on the basis that some students perform better whereas other perform poorly and therefore there is disparity in achievements. Education is the true driver of economic growth for every given economy. It is therefore the role of parents to ensure that their children obtain the necessary education. And its the role of the government to ensure that the right line of education is supplied and at an affordable price. In the present years, the level of Australian literacy level has fallen. The Australian reading, mathematics, science and literacy level has been recorded low on an international rank. Due to the raised need for education in Australia, there have been the implementation of various reforms to enhance its attainment. Some of these reforms will be discussed on this paper. The Australian government spends much on education despite the low performance recorded in the current years. Establishment of New Schools In the traditional period when the education system was introduced, only several schools were established. This was to the disadvantage of those who lived miles away from where the schools were located. Some parents were not even able to take their children to school since it would take them long to get to and from school owing to the poor means of transport. This made the education system to remain underdeveloped. However, though there still exist some areas where schools are located at long distance from some students, many schools have been erected in most regions. This has enabled many young people to acquire their education. The building of more schools is a great reform on the Australian government. The government is therefore bound to raise its level of spending on education to ensure that even the children of those who dont have incomes to spending on their children gets the necessary education. Research on the impacts of high literacy levels in developed economies has been a ssociated with high productivity. The Deregulation of Higher Education School Fees This is one of education reform that has been under a hot debate since 2014. In the 2014s budget, the government proposed to deregulate the higher education fees. Many voted against the deregulation and up to date it has not been implemented (Lewis, 2015). The contribution of the government towards supporting higher education has been fixed at 60 %, so the students school fees burden was only 40 %. This has enabled most people to acquire higher education certificates. However, the government is proposing to lower its share of contribution which means that an extra burden will be imposed on the students side. Burke (2016) argued that taxpayers and students are comfortable with the current funding system arguing that its a fair system renowned globally. This argument was laid down by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) the president of University Student Union (RUSU) Mr. Ariel Zohar. There was an argument on the need for fees reforms by Birmingham on the basis that it wo uld help in sustaining the federal budget (Knott, 2015). The argument by Birmingham also claimed that the Australian funding system to be imperfect. The deregulation was expected to take place in 2016 as noted by Moodie (2016). The places of higher education supported by the government are low, that the rationale for deregulation. The government was to be able to raise the number of places from the deregulation of school fees. Yaxley (2016) and Hansen (2015) noted that the implementation will still be expected to take place in 2017. However, the warning of protests continuing if at all some extra burden is transferred to the students still holds. The Funding of Private Schools It is with great concern that there raised a hot debate in 2011 concerning the scale at which the government funds the private schools; its on a sliding scale. It is not a unique issue in many economies to have a low funding scale for the private schools. The Australian government ensures that it funds all the private schools even if its on a sliding scale and further it allows them to set fees for covering their tuition (Caldwell, 2016). This encourages many private investors to establish more learning institutions. In large capital cities, most students tend to attend private learning institutions. The Quality of Education There has been a devotion of huge sums of money towards the promotion of excellence in Australian schools and on improving the education quality. The delivering costs of education is going up as years are passing by; the Australian government is therefore expanding its funding every year. This is with expectations that there will be improvement is students performance results. The government has set aside over $ 70 billion towards this improvement. There is a need to use these funds on areas that desperately need improvements rather than developing school assets. Conclusion Education is good for an economy and therefore the government has to spend more on its improvement. It is clear that the students wont allow the government to raise the higher education fees, or rather to lower the proportion of its support on the same. The government therefore has to seek other means that will facilitate its addition of places on higher education. Some areas in education need great concerns since the school leaders are diverting the funds allocation to unimportant areas that wont have any contribution towards improving the Australian education policy. Based on the problems noted in this paper, there is still a need for more policy reforms. References Burke, L. (2016). Malcolm Turnbulls twisted obsession. [Online] NewsComAu. Available at: https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/student-union-representatives-warn-government-against-hiking-up-uni-fees/news-story/83287d896d0a2a25f9557d84956d22f6 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016]. Caldwell, B. (2016). Educational Reform and Change in Australia. [Online] eduhk.hk. Available at: https://www.eduhk.hkhttps://www.eduhk.hk/apclc/roundtable2011/paper/Brian%20J.Caldwell.pdf/apclc/roundtable2011/paper/Brian%20J.Caldwell.pdf [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016]. Hansen, A. (2015). Education minister says uni fees won't change for 2016. [Online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/education-minister-says-uni-fees-wont-change-for-2016-48432 [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016]. Knott, M. (2015). Turnbull government shelves controversial university reforms in major departure from Abbott era. [Online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-shelves-controversial-university-reforms-in-major-departure-from-abbott-era-20150930-gjynlt.html [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016]. Lewis, R. (2015). Pyne wont give up on reforms. [Online] Theaustralian.com.au. Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/labor-questions-judgment-of-vice-chancellors-for-backing-university-reforms/news-story/a9000c95263799f68002d0f5bc3ee982 [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016]. Moodie, G. (2016). Higher education in policy paralysis after Budget 2016 what now? [Online] Theconversation.com. 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