FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
Education, skills, training, science, innovation and productivity
The Australian Government is committed to building on our $1.2 trillion economy so that we can compete with the leading nations in a world economy that is being transformed by globalisation, new technologies, and the rise of China and India. While we take full advantage of the mining boom, we must also build long term competitive strengths in the global industries of tomorrow - industries that will provide the high-paying jobs of the future.
In implementing the Government’s human capital agenda, the objective is to build a world class education system that can transform our workforce into the best educated and most highly trained in the world. This in turn is aimed at boosting long-term workforce participation and productivity. This program has begun with the immediate priorities of expanding training places to tackle the skills crisis, as well as providing universal early childhood education, a rigorous national school curriculum, improved information technology and trades training infrastructure for the 3.3 million young Australians at school.
The Australia 2020 Summit will examine ways to:
- After a long period of sustained economic growth and with the added benefits of the global mining boom, how do we best invest the proceeds of this prosperity to lay the foundations for future economic growth
- How we best prepare for a global economy that will increasingly be based upon advanced skills, advanced technology, low carbon energy sources and integration with global supply chains
- How we take advantage of Australia’s proximity to the fast growing economies in the world
- How Australia attracts and retains the most talented, creative and highly skilled people, including researchers and scientists, entrepreneurs, and professional and skilled workers
- How we ensure that our children have the highest quality teachers, whether in early childhood, school, TAFE or university, including dealing with the crisis in maths and science related disciplines across the education system
- How we foster innovation in the workplace; encouraging the transfer of ideas across businesses and economies.
Use this online forum to contribute your ideas to the Summit.
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Comments
Investment, not tax cuts
What we need to do is carefully reinvest in our infrastructure, universities, and public sector infrastructure. There's no reason why government shouldn't be spending money we already have, and yes even borrowing money to create these resources because they are then spread across the rest of the country.
We don't need tax cuts, we need carefully targeted government investments.
I’d give my vote to a Government ...
... which had the following "targets" on its Education agenda:
Teaching and healing are the most important professions in human society, and should be treated as such. In Australia, in terms of prestige and paycheck, they seem to be on the opposite sides of the scale (alas, in Russia where I come from, both doctors and teachers are still among the lowest-paid workers). And yet, as one famous Russian movie heroine once put it, "The cost of doctors' mistakes is high; mistakes by teachers are less noticeable, but in the long run they are no less costly". My apologies for a clumsy translation.
Some more is needed before my vote is won ...
These are admirable objectives & a loss of perspective either of other cultures (through language) or other times (through history) is vital to a sense of perspective that is not possible in a world of 15 second sound bites & blogs.
But there are at least 3 equally important additional components. All citizens also need:
1. A sound understanding of the natural sciences. Without it, we are already falling victim to superstition, magic potions and other forms of stupidity, let alone access to THE creator of most of our wealth over the last 500 years.
2. Sound numeracy, & as widely as possible, a sound grasp of basic mathematics that does not depend on an instinctive reaching for the calculator or spreadsheet even for the most basic activities. In my dreams, this includes a sound and rapid ability to have a sense of proportion, approximation and an understanding of absolute and relative error.
3. A basic grasp of economic principles, to understand what is happening in the world around us or even to resist the temptation of what is often voodoo economics.
A fourth additional component
Malcolm identifies three very important components in his comment, I have one more to add - and that is not only should we be teaching basic maths, but also basic English skills.
Someone else in this thread has identified the need to get back to basics in terms of teaching proper grammar in schools again - and yes, but this should be carried through up to Year 12. There are lots of students, current and past, that are clearly fantastic at deconstructing poetry and analysing themes in a play, but ask them to write a proper letter and they would stare at you blankly.
I lost count of the times my fellow students would say in frustration "Algebra / Pythagoras / Robert Frost poetry - what good will that do me in ten years time?" At the time we saw the funny side, but it occurs to me now that they may have been right, and perhaps we should have spent more time mastering the basics of multiplication and handwriting.
Algebra and Poetry
Alison brings up a good point, thanks to a teacher training system which dosn't require maths teachers to have completed a degree in mathematics, or English teachers to have completed any study of poetry as part of their university syllabus we have many teachers who neither love the works they are teaching, nor have the capacity to really understand them.
Understanding poetry is fundamental not only to understanding the way English is, or should be, phrased, but it is also a crutial element in mental and emotional development. Despairing at the poor writing skills of a handful of tutelages, I gave up getting them to write and began to teach them to read and recite poetry. Good poetry is the most crystaline distillation of any language, with all the liquid evaporated away we are left with the bare bones of expression, and bare bones of human frailty. Understanding poetry means understanding what it is to be human.
By teaching these kids to recite Patterson, Blake, Wordsworth, Yates, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Owen and yes even Frost, I enabled them to internalise beautiful English, and as a result they began not only to write beautifully, but also to think more deeply about the human condition.
Poetry and Maths are amongst the most poorly taught aspects of the syllabus, I am grateful for the teachers I had in the NSW public school system, as they inspired in me a love of both. Algebra provides rigor and mental agility, which can be applied in all fields of endevour, poetry provides linguistic fluency and emotional depth.
The tragedy is when the teachers fail to see the beauty of what they are teaching, and fail to do it justice. I believe we should revert to a system whereby teachers are encouraged to complete further studies in the areas they area actually teaching, and their pay scaled accordingly.
Civilised society
Australia should teach its people the elements of a civilised society. I mean, the rule of law, periodic elections, government by majority subject to the protection of the rights of minorities, freedom of expression, freedom of religion subject to respect for the rights of others to practise their own religion or lack of it, submission of the military to civilian control, separation of church and state, equality of opportunity, care for the needy and dispossessed, sustainable development and so on.
It is disappointing that issues of "identity" such as the Aussie citizenship test, or the claims of some religions to transcend community values, are allowed to trump knowledge of such universal values which we in a democratic and civilised society should cherish above all.
A general change in attitude is needed
The comment about expecting teachers to undertake further study in the areas they wish to specialise in is a good one.
I do however also think that the attitude towards teaching as a profession needs work. This would be more than just a change in the salary model.
I wanted to be a teacher for many of my school years and lost count of how many times random people said to me "you are too smart to be a teacher". In other words, don't waste your intelligence on such a profession, you could do so much better.
It confused me because, whether I am smart or not, isn't it important to have intelligent people teaching our children? Isn't it also important that people who study to be teachers are passionate about it and didn't just do it because it was their "last resort"?
Teachers who genuinely love their work and realise the important role they play in the development of a child should be rewarded with not just dollars but a much higher level of respect.
Australia can no longer pay lip service to Asian studies
Since 1970s, Australia has created a sizeable body of talented people who work throughout the Asian region. They are in demand because of their professional and language skills, common sense and ability to get on with people of other cultures. This success has been the result of forward-looking education policies, but in 2002 the federal government chopped funding for Asian languages and, unsurprisingly, interest in young people has waned. A variety of institutions were forced to reduce their courses. Now, even if money were available, there would not even be enough teachers.
Young Australians working in Asia are part of an Australian diaspora that reflects the shift in geography and mobility of labour markets and the rise of the service economy. They're commonly on top of strategic thought patterns across Asia. But the fact that many working in the region have no wish to return should have the rest of Australia worried. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
There's never any doubt about the love of these people for their country and their wish to be part of its journey. Indeed, that's usually why they took up Asian studies in the first place: they wanted to do something different and challenging through which they could contribute to Australia's success on the Asian block. But soon they're disappointed by a lack of demand for their skills, and rather than give up and change to another stream of activity they carve out a career for themselves in the booming markets of Asia. That's where the action is, and will be, for as far as they can see up ahead into their professional future.
Australian Innovation - Integrating Globally
In 1996, and inspired by its then Executive Director, Professor Trevor Cole, The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering, brought focus to bear in Australia, on the importance of innovation. The annual Warren Centre Innovation Lectures, which commenced in that year, have since played an important role in raising awareness of technology and innovation in Australian industry and in creating role models.
The Australian Innovation Research Centre at the University of Tasmania has recently identified five key dimensions of a healthy innovation system to be strengthened by government action, i.e. opportunity identification, knowledge creation and distribution, including higher education and research, business development and production capabilities, financial risk management, and knowledge and other technological infrastructure.
The widely acclaimed Electronics Industry Action Agenda focused over the period 2003 to 2007 on at least two of these areas i.e. opportunity identification and business development and production capabilities. The ongoing outcomes of this industry-led program, and other like science/technology related agendas, will be strengthened by government policies and programs which focus on global integration. Put simply, our innovation system needs to be globally ‘market facing' and marching to the tune of identified opportunities and challenges which can be realised by the application of our hitherto untapped technological capabilities and abilities.
Australian innovators and technology integrators must be ‘globally integrating' within a national, government policy framework driven by a more collaborative industry sector to actively seek out these new, rapidly emerging market opportunities.
Angus M Robinson, Chief Executive, AEEMA (Retired)
the economy
Benito!
While ever we have a national and economic attitude that any expenditure that has any social, community or national benefit, is predicated on debt, we shall be having these talk fests every 20 years or so.
Every subject these wonderful people produce will ask the question "where will the money come from".
Brief commentary for consideration by the 2020 Summit
Education and training in their many forms, appropriately contextualised, will be the great enablers to facilitate the generation of more inclusive, more prosperous, and more sustainable communities throughout the world.
Within the Australian context, policy, strategic and funding positions need to be established to allow universities to develop course profiles which meet the needs of individuals, groups, businesses and industries in the communities each university was established to serve. The discussion gathering momentum since the election of the Rudd Government of establishing a tertiary advisory group positioned between each university and the Federal Government, is likely to be a more effective way to encourage universities to develop and adjust appropriate profiles of courses to meet the needs of their communities.
With respect to research, far greater emphasis needs to be given to research at exacting international standards which, in addition, is likely to be of benefit to the communities, in real time, that each university was established to serve.
It is possible that the mooted compacts to be established between each university and the Federal Government could be a sensible way forward to leverage the teaching and research capability of each university for the benefit of Australia, and the world.
Prof Kerry O.Cox, Vice-Chancellor and President, Edith Cowan University
Phys Ed in primary schools
In the early 1970's my training was at Melbourne University Diploma of Phys Ed , teaching based course in which we learned how to deliver broad based, inclusive ,and comprehensive programs which were designed to deliver a range of enjoyable Physical activities to students .
I was Primary school based and we covered all kinds of activities and sports in seasonal blocks ,ball skills major games (cricket netball hockey etc) ,minor fun games,simple gymnastics ,athletics, dance and music & swimming and life saving . Now there are many more activities which could be included, like yoga or fitness programs
Every pupil was involved in 20 -30 minutes of activity every day, as well as sport once a week ,and it was designed to cater for all shapes and sizes and abilities in small groups .
I think curriculum pressure for academic subjects and the lack of well trained teachers meant this kind of activity was squeezed out of primary schools . Schools and Education departments seem to value other things like LOTE or social studies .
Surely making this kind of activity an absolute core part of school curriculums , particularly in the early years goes a long way to developing fit and healthy children .
Shifting Economic Gears
Briefly and Broadly:
Instead of looking at sustainable energy sources, for example, as some kind of insurmountable black hole of cash, why not talk about it in terms of a brand new industry we could invest in, with a view to becoming a world leader? We've fallen behind Scandinavia and central Europe in this regard over the past decade, true, but those regions haven't been riding on the back of the commodities tiger like Australia has. There's a chance to get ahead of the curve.
Closer relations and lowered trade barriers between Australia and Europe would also seem a wise course. I feel our outlook and priorities are closer, and we share similar views on the big questions of 'peace' and sustainable economy. We could learn a lot from one another.
I also don't feel we're using our position as something of a global resources bread basket to its fullest potential. It's a pretty big stick, if studied from a certain position, and could add a whole new dimension to the policy of 'creative middle power diplomacy'.
Support for families advancing their education
In society today there is an ever increasing demand to provide for our families. The stretch on budgets is beyond belief. I have five children and made the choice to gain a degree so I can provide a better more stable environment for my children. My previous job had a yearly salary of $ 26,000. To my education was my only option.
I wanted to access my super (to help with the cost of education) but I found out the hard way that gaining an education is "a choice" but I was nicely informed that if I went of unemployment for 12 month they would be glad to give it to me. With the education system in crisis and families so strapped for cash, you would think the government would be doing everything in their power to help.
Not all education is vocational
HECS and Stopping the Brain Drain
There has been much talk about the HECS debt burden placed on students and how much it impacts on their lives. However, Australia suffers another problem with many of our best graduates being drawn overseas to pursue careers because of better remuneration.
An alternative which might help to address both of these problems would be to maintain HECS fees in trust for a period of say ten years after graduation. After that time, if the graduate has residence and a job within Australia, the HECS monies plus interest are rolled into the graduate's superannuation fund.
If however the graduate is employed outside Australia by a foreign company, their initial HECS fee is retained by the government for the benefit of Australia.
The incentive of a potential boost to future superannuation benefits and the disincentive of losing this money if employment is pursued overseas might help to encourage more students into university courses and slow the brain-drain from Australia.
Innovation and research
I would argue that to better enable innovation and research in Australia that we need to move CSIRO away from the pseudo commerical model they are currently using. The output from CSIRO should be considered, as with data from many other federal agencies, a public good - not something to sell to a commerical company to make money from. The commerical model that CSIRO uses also makes it extremely difficult for other Govt departments to interact freely with and benefit from CSIRO know how. CSIRO is so concerned about intellectual property and ligitigation that they have trouble participating in public good research.
Ben Rogers
International Students (ELICOS)
According to the ABS: "Education services provided in Australia to international students were valued at over $9 billion in export earnings in the financial year 2004–05. This was the third highest export for Australia, and generated more than wool ($2.3 billion), wheat ($3.2 billion) and beef ($4.5 billion) in terms of value."
This is obviously a huge industry that seems to have been neglected in the 2020 Forum.
Metrification
It is time that we reinstated the metricifation board.
In the seventies Australia converted to the metric system. Imperial measues were to be phased out and we ceased teaching our children their complexities. The metricifation board was set up with draconian powers to stamp out imperial measures. A few years later it was decides that their job was done and the board was dismantled.
Since then imperial measures have increasingly been gaining market share. Not only for the maintenance of existing machinery but increasingly in new products being imported into Australia. For example many of the small tools imported into this country are built in China for the USA market. China itself uses metric measures and probably supplies metric models for Europe. So why do we get the imperial version?
The inefficiencies are manifest. If you go into your local hardware store equal shelf space is taken up by metric and imperial tool. When I go travelling I have to carry two sets of spanners, one for the car and one for my Australian made trailer, etc.
Our schools are not meant to teach the imperial system and our children have to learn on the run. Remember that even NASA got this wrong and wasted millions of dollar as a result.
So the metrification board should be reconviened. The importation and manufacture of new product based on the imperial system should once again be banned. Publications quoting imperial measures should include metric conversions, ie if a newspaper says that someone is six foot tall they must also say that this is 1.83 metres.