Students acquire high quality foundation skills and learning outcomes from schools.

• Description
• The Commonwealth's role
• Resources
• Planning for resource usage
• Achievements against the strategic priorities
  • Departmental outputs
  • Strategic Priority 1: Nationally comparable standards and reporting to drive improved learning outcomes for all students
  • Strategic Priority 2: Improved learning outcomes for Indigenous students
  • Strategic Priority 3: Enhance the quality and responsiveness of Australian school education
  • Strategic Priority 4: Improved transitions of young people through school to work and/or further education and training, including well informed career choices
• Overall effectiveness of the school education sector

Description

A dynamic and adaptable school system that is responsive to student needs is central to Australia's economic, social and cultural development.

The Commonwealth’s philosophy is that all individuals should have the opportunity early in life to acquire the knowledge, skills, values and understandings necessary for lifelong learning, employment and full participation in society.

State and territory governments have constitutional responsibility for schooling. Strategic policy development and delivery of programmes and services at the national level are coordinated through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). The Commonwealth works cooperatively with the states and territories and non-government school authorities in pursuit of the National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century. These goals, which were agreed by MCEETYA in 1999, focus on the learning outcomes of students and provide a framework for national reporting on student achievement and for public accountability by school education authorities.

While governments recognise that traditional pathways to these education outcomes must be developed and maintained, they are also committed to the development of alternative curricula, pedagogies and structures so that the needs of all students can be met, including those students who are not engaged in the school system.

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The Commonwealth’s role

The Commonwealth has a leadership role in identifying national standards and priorities for students, reporting of nationally comparable data on student achievement and other outcomes of schooling, and improving accountability of education providers for schooling outcomes to parents and the wider Australian community.

The Commonwealth provides significant funding to enhance the learning outcomes of all school students. Support is provided to education authorities and individual schools through general recurrent, capital and targeted programmes, and through policy development, research and analysis of nationally significant education issues.

Priority areas for Commonwealth financial support are:

• improving the quality of teaching and the learning outcomes for students;

• redressing the significant gaps between the educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians;

• improving the educational outcomes for students with special needs; and

• encouraging and supporting effective partnerships between school and industry to enable young Australians to acquire vocational, enterprise and career education, knowledge and experience before they leave school.

A fundamental principle underlying the Commonwealth's role in school education is the right of parents to choose the educational environment which best suits the needs of their child, whether the school of their choice is in the government or non-government sector.

The department assists the Commonwealth to achieve its overall objective of quality educational outcomes for all students through three distinct but interrelated foci:

• high quality policy advice and other support to the Minister;

• efficient national programme management; and

• effective working relationships with state and territory governments, education departments, non-government education authorities, schools, Indigenous education service providers and other stakeholders.

Policy advice to the Minister is underpinned by the department’s range of in-depth research, analysis and evaluation. The department’s research also informs the policy debate within the education policy community. The department bases its advice on empirical data. It collects, analyses and stores statistics for this and other purposes.

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Resources

In 2002-03, total resources allocated for Outcome 1 were $6494 million. The department administered $6418 million (Administered Appropriation) on behalf of the Commonwealth through three administered output groups:

• Output Group 1.1 -- funding for schools;

• Output Group 1.2 -- assistance for school students, including those with special needs; and

• Output Group 1.3 -- assistance for quality teaching and learning.

The department was allocated Departmental Appropriations of nearly $87 million and raised over $1 million in revenue to total $88 million for five departmental outputs:

• administration;

• policy advising;

• ministerial and parliamentary service;

• research, analysis and evaluation; and

• service delivery.

Table 1 sets out the resources invested in Outcome 1 for 2002-03.

Table 1: Resources invested in Outcome 1

a AEs - Additional Estimates

b Revenue from other sources does not include resources provided free of charge

Note: Variations between the budget estimate and actual expenditure occurred due to variations between estimated and actual student enrolments, and the payment of commitments from previous financial years being processed during 2003.

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training

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Planning for resource usage

To provide a business planning framework and operational focus within the department to support the Commonwealth’s long-term outcomes for school and Indigenous education, four strategic priorities, or medium-term goals, were identified for 2002-03. As can be seen from Figure 6, output groups can contribute to more than one strategic priority. The departmental outputs are also applied across all of the strategic priorities.

Figure 6: Alignment of Strategic Priorities and Output Groups for Outcome 1

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Achievements against the Strategic Priorities

The key deliverables for each of these strategic priorities were outlined in the 2002-03 Portfolio Budget Statements along with performance measures and planned performance targets for the year.

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Departmental outputs

Performance information on departmental outputs is only available at the outcome level.

The department administered grants and payments to state and territory governments, non-government school authorities, educational bodies and schools as well as to community groups.

Compliance with payment and management processes is measured through the Administered Funds Quality Assurance Packages developed for selected programmes, based on a risk assessment process. Schools Grants and Indigenous Education Direct Assistance (IEDA) recipients achieved 100 per cent and 97.6 per cent compliance respectively, well above the target compliance rate of 90 per cent.

The department also administers the DEST/Centrelink Business Partnership Agreement for the delivery of services in support of ABSTUDY and Assistance for Isolated Children Schemes. Centrelink met the key performance indicators as set out in the agreement.

During 2002-03, the department provided in excess of 1200 briefs to the Minister and prepared over 2700 replies to Ministerial correspondence for this Outcome. It also responded to over 900 Parliamentary questions. The department’s performance in delivering policy advice and services is assessed against a number of criteria. The Minister rates advice against a five point scale for timeliness, presentation and quality. Ministerial and Parliamentary services are assessed according to timeliness. The department more than met the performance indicator for policy advice and services to the Minister and Parliament. Ministerial briefings received a rating of good or excellent in more than 89 per cent of cases for presentation and quality, and 79 per cent for timeliness.

Table 2: The department’s performance on services to the Minister and Parliament

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training

The department published two research and evaluation studies of Outcome 1 activities. Specific research, analysis and evaluation results are reported under each strategic priority.

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Strategic Priority 1: Nationally comparable standards and reporting to drive improved learning outcomes for all students

The Commonwealth believes that reporting of nationally comparable student outcomes by schools to parents and to the broader community is necessary to ensure that education priorities focus on students' outcomes and their continuous improvement.

In the 2001-2004 funding quadrennium the Commonwealth, through the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000, strengthened the link between Commonwealth funding for schools and improved educational outcomes for all Australian students, by creating stronger reporting and accountability requirements.

All states and territories have agreed to the development and progressive implementation of nationally agreed performance measures in eight priority areas of schooling. The eight areas are: literacy; numeracy; the participation and attainment of young people in education; vocational education and training in schools; science; information and communication technology; civics and citizenship education; and enterprise education.

Reporting against performance measures and accountability requirements is undertaken through the Annual National Report on Schooling in Australia, which is published by MCEETYA.

Output Group 1.1: Funding for schools

The Commonwealth provides supplementary assistance for the recurrent costs of schools and improvements to capital infrastructure, particularly for the most educationally disadvantaged students, based on student enrolments.

The number of student enrolments for which the Commonwealth provides supplementary assistance increased between 2001 and 2002, as indicated in Table 3.

Table 3: Performance information for Output Group 1.1

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training

Over two thirds of Australian students attend state government schools, with one third attending non-government schools. Most non-government schools have some religious affiliation, with some two thirds of non-government students enrolled in Catholic schools.

Under quadrennium funding agreements all states and territories and non-government school providers in receipt of Commonwealth grants are required to report national literacy and numeracy benchmark data for years 3, 5 and 7 for 2001.

Data on years 3 and 5 reading and numeracy for 2001 and data on writing for the period 1999-2001 will be published in a supplement to the 2001 Annual National Report on Schooling in Australia. Data on year 7 reading, writing and numeracy achievement for 2001 are expected to be available later in 2003.

Data on years 3 and 5 spelling are yet to be incorporated into the Annual National Report owing to technical difficulties.

Table 4 indicates that around 90 per cent of children in years 3 and 5 achieved literacy and numeracy benchmarks over the period 1999-2001 (data for 2001 are provisional only).

Table 4: Percentage of all students achieving the reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks, years 3 and 5, Australia, 1999-2001

a na – not available

b Data for 2001 are provisional. 2001 data are awaiting final clearance with quality assurance procedures still in progress in one jurisdiction.

Source: National Report on Schooling in Australia 1999 and 2000, 2001b

Australia was amongst the highest performing countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000, which reports literacy and numeracy achievements of 15 year olds. PISA is conducted every three years; the next cycle will be in 2003 with reporting in 2004. Figure 7 shows how far above the OECD average the mean scores for Australian students were in each of the literacy categories.

Figure 7: Mean scores of Australian students in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy compared with OECD average for 2000 (set to 500)

Source: 15-Up and Counting, Reading, Writing, Reasoning. How literate are Australia’s students? The PISA 2000 Survey of Students’ Reading, Mathematical and Scientific Literacy Skills, 2001

Students’ perceived ability to use computers is measured using PISA data. Australian students are well above the OECD average, which is set at zero. Figure 8 shows Australia's performance relative to Hungary and the USA (the lowest and highest scores respectively).

Figure 8: Mean index of comfort with and perceived ability to use computers of Australian students 2000

Note: The Index is constructed with the average score across countries set at zero. A positive value indicates that students frequently report they are comfortable with using a computer and that they rate their ability to use a computer as higher than that of other 15 year olds.

Source: 15-Up and Counting, Reading, Writing, Reasoning. How literate are Australia’s students? The PISA 2000 Survey of Students’ Reading, Mathematical and Scientific Literacy Skills, 2001

In July 2002, Commonwealth and state education ministers approved a Measurement Framework for National Key Performance Measures, including a programme of three yearly national sample assessments in science, information and communication technology and civics for primary and secondary students.

The development of assessment instruments has continued through 2002-03:

• trial assessment instruments in primary science for year 6 students were completed, with the first national sample assessment to take place in October 2003;

• agreement was reached on an interim national measure for students’ performance in secondary science, using data from PISA;

• development of assessment instruments in Civics and Citizenship for year 6 and 10 is proceeding, with full trials expected to be held later in 2003 and the first full assessment in 2004;

• development of the assessment of information and communication technology knowledge and skills at years 6 and 10 commenced, with the first full assessment planned for 2005; and

• agreement on national measures for participation and attainment in vocational education and training in schools.

Development of student definitions for reporting nationally on the outcomes of educationally disadvantaged students is under way, with common definitions of student gender, Indigenous status, socioeconomic status, language background other than English and geographical location to be implemented in school year 2005. Work on nationally defining students with disabilities is also proceeding.

At the July 2003 MCEETYA meeting, it was agreed that the results of children’s year 3 and 5 literacy and numeracy tests will be reported to parents against the national benchmarks from 2004 onwards. Ministers also gave ‘in principle’ agreement to report against the year 7 benchmarks.

The Annual National Report on Schooling in Australia for 2000 was published online on the MCEETYA website in January 2003 and in print in June 2003. Chapters of the 2001 report are being published online as they are cleared by all jurisdictions.

During 2002-03, the department continued to monitor and refine the funding model for non-government schools. It also published Taking Stock, the report of the national survey of non-government schools infrastructure in 2000 and 2001. The survey found that facilities in most non-government schools are adequate for current needs, and provided data which quantifies areas for future improvement. The department also commenced a review of the Establishment Grants Programme, which will be completed by the end of 2003.

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Strategic Priority 2: Improved learning outcomes for Indigenous students

Learning outcomes for young Indigenous people have improved, but remain substantially below national averages. Learning outcomes have to be significantly improved to enable them to fully and successfully participate in further education, employment and society in general.

The Commonwealth provides supplementary funding to education systems to assist Indigenous students achieve improved learning outcomes. It also provides assistance directly to students. It works collaboratively with education providers, Indigenous communities and other state and Commonwealth agencies to ensure that policies and strategies are mutually supportive, culturally appropriate, and acknowledge the disparate needs of Indigenous communities.

Output Group 1.2: Assistance for school students, including those with special needs

The Commonwealth, under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, provides funding on a quadrennium basis for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme (IESIP) for the 2001-2004 period. IESIP provides funding under several discrete elements: Supplementary Recurrent Assistance; the Targeted Outcomes Programme, English as a Second Language - Indigenous Language Speaking Students; and IESIP away-from-base. Funding is provided for the full range of education providers, including preschool, school, and vocational education and training.

Funding is also provided through IESIP to progress the objectives of the National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. Through this strategy, the Commonwealth, in collaboration with the states and territories, works towards ensuring Indigenous students are able to reach levels of literacy and numeracy comparable to other Australians. The strategy is a blueprint to lift school attendance rates, address health problems that undermine learning, attract and retain good teachers and use the most effective teaching methods to obtain successful results for Indigenous students.

During 2002-03 the department commenced a series of reviews of the way Commonwealth assistance and services are provided to Indigenous students, so that programmes can be better focused on improving educational outcomes for the Indigenous community. The reviews, which will continue throughout 2003, encompass all sectors of education from primary and secondary school to post-school vocational education and training, and include findings on independent Indigenous vocational education providers. Details of initial findings for vocational education providers are provided in Chapter 4.

• Indigenous Education Consultative Bodies and Indigenous Support Units enable dialogue between Indigenous communities, education providers and governments. In 2002-03 funds were provided to seven consultative bodies and three support units. The Northern Territory University conducted an independent analysis of these bodies which indicated that they have an important role in providing consultation with Indigenous communities on education policy and professional and technical support to Aboriginal community schools, but needed greater clarification of their role to increase their value to the Commonwealth.

• Indigenous Education Direct Assistance (IEDA) provides funds for additional tuition for Indigenous school students, both in-school and through homework centres, and for measures to increase Indigenous parental involvement in their child's education, by supporting parent committees. The department commenced a review of the IEDA programmes in September 2002. The first phase focused on streamlining processes. The second phase, which is yet to report, focused on policy.

• To improve service delivery to clients, a joint Centrelink/DEST ABSTUDY business improvement project was undertaken during 2002-03. Agreement has been reached by the two agencies to implement a range of service delivery improvements, including simplification of forms and improved communication with clients.

In terms of performance, between 2001 and 2002 the number of full-time Indigenous students enrolled in school education, including preschool, increased by 6193 students (or 5.4 per cent). This included a sharp increase in secondary enrolments (up 7.4 per cent). Contributing to this was a 12.3 per cent increase in year 12 enrolments to a best-ever level of 2941 students.

The number of Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness Committees increased slightly from 3771 to 3811 between 2001 and 2002 (see Table 5).

The number of school students in receipt of ABSTUDY also increased from 2001 to 2002. While the target for 2002 was not achieved, the total number of students across all education sectors in receipt of ABSTUDY met expectations (see Table 15, Chapter 4). This suggests that more students participated in vocational education and training than expected.

In 2002 there were 583 Homework Centres supported under the Indigenous Education Direct Assistance Programme compared to 655 Centres supported in 2001. It is possible that the lower demand for Homework Centres is commensurate with increased demand for in-school tuition over the same period, which may be achieving supported education outcomes more effectively. The department will continue to monitor the situation and it is expected that the series of reviews outlined above will also provide insights into this particular programme.

Table 5: Performance information for Output Group 1.2

a Reported in the Portfolio Budget Statements 2002–03 as 29 729. This was the actual number for 2000-01 financial year

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training and Centrelink

The percentage of Indigenous students achieving the minimum acceptable standards of reading, writing and numeracy in 2001 is low compared with that for non-Indigenous students (see Tables 4 and 6). The outcomes for literacy apply only to achievements in standard Australian English. The primary school benchmark results indicate that much long-term work remains to address the significant numbers of Indigenous students at risk of not being able to make sufficient progress through school.

Table 6: Percentage of Indigenous students achieving the reading, writing and numeracy benchmark, years 3 and 5, Australia, 1999-2001

a Not available

b Data for 2001 are provisional. 2001 data are awaiting final clearance with quality assurance procedures still in progress in one jurisdiction.

Source: National Report on Schooling in Australia 1999 and 2000, 2001b

Retention rates for full-time Indigenous students from year 7/8 to year 12 rose by two per cent, increasing from 36 per cent in 2000 to the highest-ever level of 38 per cent in 2002, as indicated in Figure 9. It can be seen, however, that there was no apparent lessening of the gap in retention rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students over the same period.

Figure 9: Apparent retention rate of Indigenous and non-Indigenous full-time students from year 7/8 to year 12

Source: Schools Australia 2002

Overall, the level of participation in education by Indigenous students, and their education attainment levels, are below those of the rest of the community. The gap further widens for rural and remote communities. A high proportion of Indigenous youth in remote localities have an education attainment below year 10, while the proportion of non-Indigenous youth with below year 10 attainment remains relatively constant across localities (see Figure 10). A correspondingly low proportion of Indigenous young people in remote localities achieve a year 12 qualification, while the highest occurrence of Indigenous students who achieve a year 12 qualification occurs in urban areas and is a similar proportion to non-Indigenous students in rural areas (see Figure 11).

The department is participating in the eight Council of Australian Government (COAG) whole of government Indigenous trials as a key strategy in addressing these issues. It is the lead agency for the Murdi Paaki region in Western New South Wales, for which improved educational attainment and school retention is one of four priorities agreed between the Murdi Paaki community, the Commonwealth and the New South Wales government.

Figure 10: Proportion of 15-19 year olds with education attainment below year 10 by locality, 2001

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training and Australian Bureau of Statistics

Figure 11: Proportion of 15-19 year olds with education attainment of year 12 by locality, 2001

Source: Department of Education, Science and Training and Australian Bureau of Statistics

The First National Report to Parliament on Indigenous Education was tabled in Parliament in November 2002. The report is a requirement of the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 and provides detail of the outcomes achieved by Indigenous students and Commonwealth programme details. The next report is due in November 2003.

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