By Alison Dellit
Following the release of the National School English Literacy Survey and the new Literacy Standards in Australia on September 16, we were treated to a high profile public "debate" on literacy between the (then) federal schools minister, Dr David Kemp, and the state schools ministers.
Kemp claimed that one third of year five students are illiterate. This was disputed by the state ministers, who also pleaded a lack of federal funding.
Kemp hit back, saying that what was lacking in schools was not money but "the will" to fight illiteracy. He threatened to cut funding to "under-performing" schools.
Meanwhile, papers like the Melbourne Age and the Australian have given very little coverage to the main findings of the report — that indigenous students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds have much lower literacy levels than those from high socioeconomic backgrounds.
Over the last five years, much of the public debate on education has centred on literacy — the ability to read, write, listen and speak. The big story is that, as funding has increasingly been moved into private schools and away from the public sector, more students are staying illiterate.
The emphasis on literacy, which is linked to the concept of an all-round education, is now being replaced by the idea of vocational training — education to prepare students for employment.
The previous Labor government set up the National School English Literacy Survey in 1996 to conduct a comprehensive survey of literacy achievements in years three and five. Its reference group included the school system, the Australian Education Union and parent and employer groups.
The survey was conducted using commonly agreed-upon tests that were assessed by individual teachers and checked by independent assessors. When the preliminary results indicated a high level of illiteracy, a task force of state ministers was set up to formulate a strategy to overcome the problem.
The Coalition government decided to persist with the survey, although it attempted to remove the union and some other representatives from the working group.
The next results were even more disturbing. While achievement was not contrasted to an existing benchmark, there was a huge disparity in literacy between those at the top of the scale and those at the bottom. The clearest differentiators were whether students were from an indigenous or low socioeconomic background.
The final report showed that the amount of money a child's parents earned was more likely to be a significant factor influencing levels of literacy than the language spoken at home.
The average achievement in writing skills of students from wealthy families is way ahead of the average student from a poor background. The average performance in reading skills of students from the poorest third of families was the same as that of the lowest achieving students from the wealthiest third.
This disparity was most noticeable at the year five level. As students from a low socioeconomic level showed less tendency to improve between years three and five, the gap grew markedly over these years.
An eight-year-old child from a poor background is less likely to be able to read than an eight-year-old from a non-English speaking background. At the age of 10, the difference is even more marked.
The literacy of most indigenous students was very low. In year three, the average achievement of an indigenous student was lower than the lowest recorded achievement of the highest socioeconomic groups and around the same as the lowest achievement of the middle socioeconomic group. Results were similar for all aspects of literacy.
These results paint a picture of an education system that is meeting the needs only of the wealthiest students.
Responding to the preliminary results, Kemp requested that the state ministers look at acceptable benchmarks for all students. These were in the process of being developed when the survey was completed.
Kemp requested that the Australian Council for Educational Research compare the draft, untested benchmarks with the survey results. This was done, but the survey coordinators were unhappy with the methodology and placed the results in an appendix to the report. Kemp subsequently published this as a separate report.
The report clearly indicates that Kemp's so-called "under-performing" schools are those that have had their funding cut under the Liberals. While Kemp did not, as he threatened, cut funding to the state education system in response to the results, the overall impact of the policies the government has pursued is to worsen the situation for the less well off.
By changing the funding structure of the disadvantaged schools program, Kemp has increased the amount of money for schools with one or two disadvantaged students and decreased it to schools with a majority of disadvantaged students.
Changes have also been made to the state school funding structure which have resulted in more funding to private schools for every student won over from the state school system.