Reforms In The Education Industry Of Australia

Segments of Education in Australia

Describe about the Reforms In The Education Industry Of Australia.

Education is one of the most sought after sectors of Australia in recent times. Off-lately the said sector has become a major contributor to the revenue of the country. The recent five years has shown some of the striking changes in the education industry of Australia. Private sector has emerged successfully so much that it has outpaced the government sector. These private educational institutions are concentrated in providing English language as a part of the main subject. The tutoring business has also extended a supportive arm for nurturing the said language in the country. Another very important development in the said industry has been in providing online education and infusing technology into the system as well.

Australia has been well known in imparting education at international level thus attracting students from across the globe. The Country has emerged as one of the top most education providers after the US, UK, Germany and France. Annually, Australia draws at least 45000 students internationally covering 200 countries (investinaustralia.com, 2016). After tourism, education is Australia’s second largest export service sector.

The education in Australia can be divided into four different segments. They are as under:

1. Early Childhood and Education care
2. Schools
3. Vocational Educational and Training (VET)
4. Higher Education

Since education is one of the most important sectors of the Country, reforms have been bought in all these segments, especially in the VET and the higher education segment.

Firstly comes the early childhood and care segment which primarily caters to the citizens of the country. Experiencing a childhood which is happy and thus helps to imbibe a positive attitude within children. Research has proved that a family which imparts quality time and surroundings to their children, proper education during their years of nurturing and adequate care and family support programmes, give rise to children who are inclined towards education and is beneficial for the child as well as the society as a whole.

The Government of Australia got involved in the year 1972 with regards the child care financing. It established family day care schools so as to mark a significant change in the workforce which would comprise of more of women population. The cost was divided amongst the Commonwealth Government and the state and territory governments as the number of day care schools demand increased. To enable that the services provided these child care schools were of high quality it introduced the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System(unesco.org, 2015). Thus although much of reform was not possible in this segment, yet the introduction of child care systems enabled the women to work as well and also provided the children an exposure to a more organized surrounding.

Early Childhood and Care segment

Second segment is that of school which is also restricted basically for the citizens of Australia only with few exceptions. Here the Australian Government’s role emerges as a national leader. The government is on a continuous job of partnering with the state and the territories and the private schools as well including Catholics. Under the Government’s Students First package of reforms, attention is given to four main areas i.e. the quality of the teachers, the self-sufficiency of the educational institution, involvement of parents and revisiting the Australian Curriculum. The said reform also includes a close association with Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet so as to warrant that the conventional policy, programmes and the service delivery caters to the improvisation of the outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well.

In the year 2008, all the Australian Education ministers agreed to The Melbourne Declaration which pronounced the following two aims. Firstly is that the Australian schools enables imparting excellence and equality in the education and secondly all the young citizens of the country become confident, creative and responsible people (Australian Council for Private Education and Training, 2015). The government supports via innumerable programs and also financially as well to the state and the territories so that the public and the private schools develop quality educational system.

From the year 2014, repetitive funding to the schools at both the private as well as the public level has been, basis their requirements as guided in the Australian Education Act 2013. The main motto of this Act is to ensure that the system delivers a superior quality and exceedingly impartial edification to all the students and perform to COAG targets for school education. Further to this the government is working with the state and territory school authorities to make amendments in the Act so as to conform that the authority of the public schools are within their reach and the private schools are being able to maintain their independence too.

Thirdly is the reform in the Vocational education and training segment which is of utmost importance as this systems helps to drill in such skills which is needed for the prosperity of the economy as it entails to deliver jobs which is industry specific. The Australian Government has boarded on a noteworthy reform in the VET system of the country. The main reason for the said reform is to ensure that the quality of the skills are bettered along with the status of VET which is a necessity so as to be able to serve the future skills needs of the economy.

School segment

The quality is what matters both of the trainers as well as the curriculum for enhancement of the role that VET plays in the employment prospects of the students. The main objectives behind introduction of reform in the VET system are echoed in the below mentioned four main themes.

1. The responsiveness of the industry
2. The quality and regulation
3. Funding and governance
4. Data and consumer information

Source: education.gov.au, (2016)

The training documents and prospectus are prepared in consultation with the specific industries so that the workers are trained accordingly. The directives of the VET segment besides the national standards are basically regulated by the Australian Skills and Quality Authority (ASQA). Presently the government is looking towards modernisation of the VET segment. The first reform set which was introduced in the year 2013 mainly concentrates upon the simplification and streamlining of the control and the dogmatic arrangements of the VET system. This would entail the system to be pro towards the industry requirements.

The Government has time-honoured a VET Advisory Board which gives suggestions to the Ministers and the Department of Industry on the reform priorities for VET. The reform agenda is concentrating upon addressing the issue of the apprenticeship completion rate which is just at around 50 percent presently. A new Australian Support Network is expected to give advice, support, and job matching and counselling to the trainees as of July 2015. Unfortunately the stipends that these trainees get is very low and hence to support the same the Government has also introduced the Trade Support Loans of $20000 which would enable them to complete their training programs without any financial hitches.

Further to these reforms lies the $476 million Industry Skills Fund. The new reforms being introduced, the Government is eyeing at altering the ASQA’s funding modality. Earlier the teachers had to contemplate their attention towards proving their conformity adjacent to the intricate set of laws. But now the amended reform aims to applaud those teachers and trainers who have proven to be at low-risk with the greater autonomy. Thus ASQA will spend more time in focussing upon those teachers who are unable to deliver good quality results. ASQA would also help these trainers become aware of what is expected out of them. Thus the VET reform agenda is an important part of the Government’s upcoming National Industry Investment and Competitiveness Agenda.

However as per an announcement made by the federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham, the vocational education industry facades disorder for a year and the vision of justifiable workers being crippled by the Government’s sweeping revamp of the segment. The present regulations will lead to putting greater hurdles to the entry of new teachers, regulate the appropriate courses to those deemed to impart good job prospects and introduce stricter compliances and compensation conditions (Munro, 2016). The loans that would be available for the students would be capped to the extent of the courses that match the needs of the industry and it would be limited to three caps $5000, $10000 and $15000. This amount would create a huge gap which the students would be forced to pay upfront. This is however a matter of great concern which would lead to downsizing of the said segment considerably thus hitting the Australian economy’s welfare as well.

Reform in Vocational Education and Training

The fourth and the last segment in which reform plays a very critical role is the higher education wherein the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 was the first guiding legislation introduced. The same was replaced after two and a half decades by the Higher Education Support Act 2003. More so, recently the Government introduced the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. This is the most important segment which drives the prosperity of the economy of the country.

The higher education alone totals for two third of the education exports. Therefore the main aim for introducing this amendment in the Act was to rope in more students by giving them opportunities which would include students who belong to the disadvantaged and regional areas also and prepare the universities to confront the challenges of the present scenario. Under the reform spelt out by the Government the universities will be able to provide Commonwealth supported areas on demand basis to the students who are enrolling themselves for the accredited undergraduate qualifications (Dow, 2016). The Australian Government is also introducing the policy of giving tuition grants to the undergraduate students who are getting education from any registered higher education donor for any ascribed course. Further to help the underprivileged students, the Government has proposed a Commonwealth scholarship scheme in which $1 in every $5 of extra income earned via deregulation of the fees and the charges will support accessibility to such students. Therefore the higher education mainly aims at easing out thus attracting the international students to enrol for various graduate and undergraduate courses (Knott, 2014).

The net appreciation in the value by the said sector for year 2014-15 can be understood with the help of the following chart.

 

Source: Deloitte Access Economics, (2015)

The international education has been Australia top two export service with tourism and is one of the five major growing sectors of the Australian economy which will help to bring in a remarkable change in the coming decade. Its significance is understood by the data released by The Department of Education and Training (2016) that more than 100000 jobs are created for the benefit of the organizations and the business hubs in various sectors such as retail, wholesale, hospitality etc. The value of international education is more than $19.5 billion in the year 2015 which makes it one of the major source of export income.

Thus the international education offers many more benefits to the economically and socially as well. The same can be summarised in the below mentioned figure.

 

Source: Gallagher, 2014

Conclusion

Thus it is understood that all the four segments are important for the education industry of the country, but the reform in the VET and the higher education segment is more of value in terms of export earnings. The reforms introduced in the higher education sector are not as fundamental as the demonisers of the various competitive markets but are still extraordinary as it has to be if the country wishes to be competitive with the global knowledge economy. Lastly, the continent’s mixture of a demand-driven policy of financing, a national higher education regulator and a set procedure for income-contingent loans enables the country to follow the path the path of micro-economic reform of the education industry in a more easy manner.

References:

Australian Council for Private Education and Training, (2015), Microeconomic Reform, Available at https://www.erawa.com.au/cproot/11706/2/Australian%20Council%20for%20Private%20Education%20and%20Training%20-%20Public%20Submission%20-%20Inquiry%20into%20Microeconomic%20Reform%20Issues%20Paper.pdf (Accessed 29^th November 2016)

Deloitte Access Economics, (2015), The value of international education to Australia, Available at https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/research-papers/Documents/ValueInternationalEd.pdf (Accessed 29th November 2016)

Dow, C., (2016), Reform of the higher education demand driven system (revised), Available at https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/rp/budgetreview201415/higheredu (Accessed 29th November 2016)

education.gov.au, (2016), Vocational Education and Training Reform, Available at https://www.education.gov.au/vocational-education-and-training-reform (Accessed 29th November 2016)

investinaustralia.com, (2016), Education and Training Industry in Australia, Available at https://www.investinaustralia.com/industry/education-training/education-training-industry-australia (Accessed 29th November 2016)

Gallagher, M., (2014), Micro-economic Reform of the Australian higher education industry: Implications of the Abbott Government’s Budget of 13 May 2014, Available at https://go8.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/article/edutech_presentation_-_4_june_2014-pdf_version.pdf (Accessed 29th November 2016)

Munro, K., (2016), Vocational education industry reforms could ‘cripple’ quality providers, The Sydney Morning Herald [Online], Available at https://www.smh.com.au/national/education/vocational-education-industry-reforms-could-cripple-quality-providers-20161005-grvaye.html (Accessed 29th November 2016)

Knott, M., (2014), Government backs down on some higher education reforms, The Sydney Morning Herald [Online], Available at https://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-backs-down-on-some-higher-education-reforms-20141023-11asnr.html (Accessed 29th November 2016)

The Department of Education and Training, (2016), Australia’s international education sector worth more than previously estimated, Available at https://ministers.education.gov.au/colbeck/australias-international-education-sector-worth-more-previously-estimated (Accessed 29th November 2016)

unesco.org, (2015), Australia- Education for all 2015 National Review, Available at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002310/231060e.pdf (Accessed 29th November 2016)