Standing Committee on Employment, Education
and Workplace Relations
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Submission 18
Dr. Richard G. Bagnall
Assoc. Prof. of Adult & Vocational Education
Submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee
on Employment, Education and Training
Inquiry into The Appropriate Roles of Institutes of Technical and Further
Education
22 October 1997
Overview
In this submission, it is argued that contemporary shifts in Australian
culture and cultural theory call for the reduction of legislative and
other regulatory distinctions between different sectors of tertiary education,
but that, in responding to this call, the Australian Government should
seek to strengthen regulatory frameworks that:
1. ensure equitable access to the diversity of tertiary educational
opportunities by all Australian adults;
2. recognize through government support the public value of individual
involvement in and through education; and
3. build upon, in a situationally sensitive manner, those features
of traditional tertiary education systems that are seen to be in the
public good.
The Context
Contemporary cultural theory and current cultural change point particularly
to the foIllowing sorts of changes with respect to education (ref., e.g.:
Bagnall, 1994; Bauman, 1992; Hinkson, 1991; Hunter, 1994; Lash, 1990;
Marshall, 1992; Peters, 1995; Usher, Bryant & Johnston, 1997; Usher
& Edwards, 1994):
1. the continuing erosion of traditional distinctions between and among
cultural realms, such as education, work and leisure;
2. the continuing erosion of traditional distinctions between different
educational sectors, particularly those in the post-compulsory area
(university, adult and community education, technical and further education,
senior secondary schooling, etc.);
3. the continuing erosion of traditional distinctions between public
and private provision of and engagement in tertiary education;
4. the continuing erosion of traditional distinctions between and among
the academic disciplines and vocational (including professional) categories;
5. the continuing erosion of legislative and other regulatory provisions
which support the foregoing distinctions;
6. the continuing privatization of educational responsibility; and
7. the correlative continuing shift to proportionally more private
support for educational provision and engagement,
These trends are trans-national, as much as they are national (Australian).
They are an inseparable part of the globalization of political, economic
and more broadly cultural influence, with the concomitant erosion of effective
control by nation states.
They are associated with a number of major changes at the micro-level
in educational provision and engagement, including changes to more: episodic
(project-based) provision; contract-based employment and provision; work-force
casualization; and the out-sourcing of service provision and product development.
Among the consequences of these changes is a discounting of traditional
roles and responsibilities, including a loss of commitment both to preserving
what is valuably inherited from the past and to locating present provision
and engagement in the context of a better future. In other words, educational
action becomes more focussed on immediately present contingencies. All
of the foregoing changes amount to our being located within a period of
extremely rapid and radical ideological change - ideological in the broad
sense of the way in which we understand ourselves, our world, our place
in society, the responsibilities of government, individual, communities,
etc.
The Legislative Response
In such a context, the Australian Government may be seen as having a
clear responsibility to respond legislatively to these cultural changes.
However, it should also be appreciated that the temptation to wholeheartedly
do so in times of such rapid ideological change carries with it the ever-present
risk of serious cultural loss, through change that is too rapid, insensitive,
ill-informed or extreme. That loss may be seen as occurring in a number
of dimensions, particularly, perhaps, the following:
1. the loss of diversity in educational provision, through the play
of market forces favouring only provision that is cost efficient and
effective;
2. the loss of access to a proper range of educational provision by
those whose personal circumstances are less than optimal–who live in
any sort of relative disadvantage;
and
3. the loss of cultural value to Australian society in and through
its educational systems:
both the value of education as a means to other ends (greater economic
productivity; more stable and responsive government; lower welfare costs;
lower costs of surveillance, censorship and policing, etc.) and as an
end in itself (as enriching the quality of human existence in Australia).
What I am focussing attention on here are four concepts that should inform
all Government policy in education. Firstly, there should be recognition
of the social responsibility of Government to optimize equitable access
on the part of all Australians. Secondly, there should be proper recognition
of the vast, but diffuse and diverse nature, of education as a public
good. Thirdly, there should be recognition of the freedom of educational
choice as a positive construct underpinning Australian society–positive
in the sense of access to educational opportunity, not in the weakly and
discriminatively negative sense of freedom from restraint and constraint.
And fourthly, there should be recognition of the responsibility of government
as the representative of the people.
The contextual changes noted above tend to encourage a rapid privatization
and marketization of educational provision–both moves which are contra-indicated
by the principles of optimizing equitable access, education as a public
good, the positive freedom of educational choice, and responsible government.
In seeking to protect the tertiary educational interests of all Australians,
the Government should be mindful of the contemporarily increasing cultural
value of educational attainment, and the consequential point that traditional
mechanisms to ensure equitable access are no longer adequate.
In seeking to give adequate recognition to tertiary education as a public
good, it should be recognized that traditional assessments of the extent
of that good, or of its proportion relative to the private, are woefully
inadequate. The cuturally embedded and diffuse nature of educational impact
render any general assessment of the value of that impact a matter of
extreme complexity: a complexity that greatly exceeds any recognition
that it has received to date. Education as private good may be argued
to be much more readily calculable (but, nevertheless, complex and situationally
variable), raising the prospect of a serious under-valuation of the public
value of educational attainment. It needs to be recognized also that the
national mandating of educational fetishes and cure-alls, such as that
of the competency-based movement in current vocational education and training
legislation and policy, will inevitably cause enormous damage to the public
value of education in and through the systems so affected.
In seeking to apply a positive construct of freedom of educational opportunity,
Government should be mindful of the cultural damage and widespread personal
disadvantage that flows from (indeed, is increasing flowing from) a negative
conception of freedom that has informed so much legislative change in
recent years.
In seeking to recognize the responsibility of Government as the representative
of the people of Australia, Government should ensure that this responsbility
is not, in effect, delegated through distorted consultative or implementation
processes to any particular groups or sectoral interests–as it has been
in the most recent past to employers in the technical and further education
sector.
Considerations
In responding to the call for the removal of legislative and other regulatory
distinctions between different sectors of tertiary education, most particularly
those between the technical and further education and the university sectors,
it is suggested, then, that the following sorts of considerations should
be included-
1. The need to recognize the value of, and to build upon, centres of
educational (meaning both teaching and research) excellence across the
whole range of tertiary education–to ensure the existence in Australia
of major national centres in all areas of vocational and academic interest.
Such centres should be fully and equitably national in their
outreach and concern.
2. The need for the on-going review of realitive access to educational
opportunity by persons in all potentially disadvantagd categories.
3. The need for the provision of targeted and regulated funding to
address areas of concern identified in those reviews. The form of such
provision should be sensitive to the concerns and the persons involved.
4. The need for the provision of public funding to educational providers
in such a way that recognition is given to the diversity of relative
private and public benefit from education, across both the range of
provision and the range of participating learners.
5. The need to recognize, in the formulation of change agendas, that
tertiary education institutions, including those in the technical and
further education sector, have generally developed a wide diversity
and number of public functions in addition to, or in association with,
their central educational functions. Policy change should recognize
and build upon that which is valuable. To do so, it will need to be
sensitive to local and institutional differences.
6. The need for the encouragement of educationalflexibility and diversity
across the tertiary sectors, including the facilitation of credit transfer
and student mobility between technical and further education and the
universities.
Concluding
In closing, it is submitted that the foregoing issues and considerations
may most valuably be seen as occurring across, or in spite of, particular
ideological differences between the major political parties, while recognizing
also that there are, indisputably, differences in the extent to which
they are embraced with enthusiasm by the parties. They are issues and
considerations which arise from trends that are beyond the effective control
of any one party. They may best be tackled, then, through deliberative
and consutative processes that recognize the pervasive nature of their
grounding in contemporary culture.
References
Bagnall, R.G. (1994). Pluralising continuing education and training in
a postmortem world: Whither competence? Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Vocational Education Research, 2(2), 18-39.
Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hinkson, J. (1991). Postmodernity: State and education. Geelong,
Victoria: Deakin University Press.
Hunter, 1. (1994). Rethinking the school: Subjectivity, bureaucracy,
crticism. St. Leonards, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.
Lash, S. (1990). Sociology of postmodernism. New York: Routledge.
Marshall, B.K. (1992). Teaching the postmodern. New York: Routledge.
Peters, M. (Ed.). (1995). Education and the postmodern condition.
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Usher, R., Bryant, I., & Johnstone, R. (1997). Adult education
and the postmodern challenge: Learning beyond the limits. London:
Routledge.
Usher, R., & Edwards, R. (1994). Postmodernism and education:
Different voices, different worlds. London: Routledge.
Richard G. Bagnall
22 October 1997
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