Curriculum Council Amendment Bill 2011
Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich; Hon Alison Xamon; Hon Matt Benson-Lidholm
Second Reading
Resumed from 30 August.
HON ALISON XAMON (East Metropolitan) [9.08 pm]: I rise tonight to indicate the Greens’ (WA) support for this legislation. This bill amends the Curriculum Council Act 1997 and replaces the Curriculum Council with a statutory body that will be known as the School Curriculum and Standards Authority. The authority will be a regulatory body with responsibility for school curriculum, standards and assessment. The Curriculum Council Amendment Bill will streamline the authority’s functions by adapting some of the present functions of the Curriculum Council together with new functions primarily related to the monitoring of standards of student achievement across the primary and secondary schooling years. It provides for the authority to be governed by a board that will comprise a chair and six members appointed by the minister. A change to the existing act is that members of the board are to be individuals appointed for their collective expertise and knowledge of curriculum and educational standards, rather than being a representational body. The bill will also establish two statutory advisory committees; firstly, the Standards Committee with five members appointed by the board with the minister’s approval—one being a member of the board who will chair the committee; and, secondly, the Curriculum and Assessment Committee that will comprise 13 members, with one being a member of the board who will chair the committee. Curriculum and assessment will be brought together into a single section rather than being spread across two sections, as is presently the case. I note that the board also will be able to appoint other committees as needed.
The bill addresses concerns with provisions in the current act, raising potential conflicts of interest, as they do not separate regulators from the providers. It also introduces new functions, including the provision of student assessment results to governing bodies, principals, students and parents. It will enable recognition of achievements attained elsewhere and admits students to examinations as private candidates—that is, students with no accompanying school assessment. It will be endorsing courses.
The provisions in the bill will enable the authority to prepare independent reports of the standards being achieved in WA schools. Relevant governing bodies will have the opportunity to make submissions on the draft reports, and the authority will have the capacity to request governing bodies to provide specified information. The aim is to identify how well students are achieving and to identify areas that may require attention. Currently, no state agency reports to the minister on standards in schools and school systems. The bill provides for more comprehensive records of individual students’ results to be kept from kindergarten or the first year that they start school, which I think could provide more useful data for evidence-based research and policy development. I note that a copy of a student’s record is available to the student and their parent. Under the existing provisions, the record may be obtained only by the student or a person authorised by the student. That amendment is necessary, given that records will now be open from a much younger age, because clearly kindergarten students are not in a position to give authority to access their own records. The bill removes the provisions that mandate implementation of the curriculum framework by each school.
In relation to the members of the board, the bill provides for a significant change in governance of the authority. As I mentioned, it shifts from being a representational council to a ministerially appointed board of experts. It will be interesting to see the outcomes of these changes. I note that the State School Teachers’ Union of WA, universities, the Catholic Education Office, the education department and parents groups are all represented on the Curriculum Council. Many of these bodies would understandably like to continue to play a role. There has been some considerable discussion about whether a representative body is helpful and whether it actually means that it stands in the way of good decision making. In any event, I understand that separating the providers and the regulators was a strong recommendation from the review of the act.
Hon Peter Collier: That was the biggest thing that came out of the review.
Hon ALISON XAMON: Yes, and that this change in governance was a major impetus behind the establishment of the new authority. I have also heard the argument that the council was unwieldy in size, and that there were too many members trying to pursue their own agendas. Parents groups, unions, universities and heads of the different school providers obviously need to be kept informed and engaged in the process of curriculum development, standards and assessment. It is important that any changes are not developed in a vacuum away from those whose responsibility it will be to make them work on the ground. It will be interesting to see how the new structure works.
I note that, according to the minister, although the membership has not been decided, the current chair, Professor Patrick Garnett, who is relatively new in the role, will continue in the role. Professor Garnett is a former provice- chancellor of Edith Cowan University, an eminent educator and emeritus professor.
The bill also removes functions related to professional development. This move was based on the argument that it is not appropriate for the curriculum regulator to plan and provide professional development for those responsible for delivering the curriculum. The question I have is whether this means that the minister intends that the School Curriculum and Standards Authority will not have any responsibilities for professional development. Although this may seem like a sensible separation, I am concerned that omitting this function from the legislation potentially leaves a gap. We know that the professional development of teachers across issues related to the curriculum is incredibly important, particularly given the upcoming introduction of the new Australian national curriculum.
The Interim National Curriculum Board has indicated explicitly that professional development on the implementation of the national curriculum will be the responsibility of the jurisdictions, so I am interested to hear the minister’s response as to whether it is envisioned that this may be an issue. The Western Australian College of Teaching supposedly has some responsibility for professional development, although it is commonly acknowledged that WACOT does not currently have the capacity to undertake this function. Another question I have is whether the minister intends to introduce amendments to the Western Australian College of Teaching Act to facilitate the college’s capacity to influence the quality of the professional learning available to teachers. If not, which body will be responsible for recognising and supporting professional development programs?
Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich has already referred to the big-ticket item, which is the introduction of the national curriculum. I note that the provisions in the bill before us are designed to facilitate the introduction of the national curriculum. In recent years we have seen new directions in commonwealth and state policies and quite significant changes in the way that we view education. Although many stakeholders have welcomed the move to develop a national curriculum, which is certainly going to be positive for those students who move between Australian states and territories when they are undertaking their education, from past experience in the implementation of new education curricula and assessments, some of which has already been mentioned tonight, we all know that failure to provide enough support, guidance and quality resources is a recipe for disaster. It is incredibly important for students, their parents and our broad schooling communities that we get this right, which does not mean that we will not; it just means that we need to be very conscious of that. I understand that the final curriculum content has now been developed for English, history, science and maths and that we are now waiting for the finalisation of resources and validated standards. Although some WA schools are currently trialling aspects of the curriculum, I note the minister has reiterated that WA will not implement the national curriculum until everything is ready, which, to be clear, I am pleased to hear, although I note that that position is not going to be determined until a ministerial council to be held in October. I understand that New South Wales has already indicated that it will not implement the curriculum next year because the resources have not been finalised with enough lead-in time.
In the 2009 review of the framework for curriculum, assessment and reporting purposes in Western Australian schools, Professor David Andrich made a number of recommendations about the resourcing and support of schools to successfully implement the national curriculum. He particularly noted that smaller and less wellresourced schools will need quite comprehensive support. I would like to take the opportunity to echo this call. We need to ensure that our teachers and schools are well supported to make this change.
In relation to the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy, from the briefing received, I understand that it is the minister’s intention that the new authority will be responsible for NAPLAN testing and results. I am interested in hearing the government’s views on this issue, given the national rollout of NAPLAN and the publication of school results on the federal My School website and the accompanying media frenzy that this caused at the time. In recommendation 9, Professor Andrich recommended that the impact of publishing NAPLAN results should be monitored comprehensively and independently. I acknowledge that it is difficult to achieve the balance between increasing transparency and the danger that the publication of these figures can have a negative impact on schools and school communities that do not perform as well as their peers. I am interested to hear whether the minister has any plans to undertake a thorough assessment of this issue. I have a few other questions, but I can wait to the committee stage to ask them. They are just questions of clarification to ask as we go through the bill. I would be interested in hearing further from the minister at that point.
Before I conclude my remarks, I want to make one last comment. In this place I have spoken about the issue of ministers providing briefings and I have said before that without exception every single minister in this place is excellent in ensuring that briefings are given to my office in a timely and responsive way. I acknowledge that and I am pleased. However, it was very difficult to get a briefing on this bill. We tried to get a briefing for six weeks and we kept getting dismissed. I have noticed that other ministers do not employ that practice. I thought I would mention that. I have expressed my concern and my disquiet to the minister’s advisers. I thought I would put that on the record. Maybe I am a little spoilt because the ministers in this place are usually very diligent and make sure that their briefings are provided in a timely way.
Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich interjected.
Hon ALISON XAMON: No, it is certainly no minister in this house.
Hon Peter Collier: I rang up on Thursday and asked for the briefings to be arranged.
Hon ALISON XAMON: I had been trying to get briefings for six weeks. I tried to get a briefing as soon as this bill was introduced in the other place because I have quite a bit of interest in it.
Hon Peter Collier: I rang up on Wednesday; sorry.
Hon ALISON XAMON: Absolutely. I had been trying to get briefings for six weeks. The practice with other ministers is usually really good. It was frustrating to have to try so hard to get a briefing. The time was really limited when that briefing was made available. I thought I would take this opportunity to at least get that on the record.
The Greens support this legislation. I will have some more questions when we get to the committee stage.
Debate adjourned, pursuant to temporary orders.