Square Pegs in Round Holes

I’ve just taken the time to read, in detail, the National School Reform Agreement Inquiry 2023, which was completed in December 2022. This document identifies the fact that despite all efforts to achieve improvement goals around engagement, equity, and achievement, the Australian school system has generated outcomes that have decreased in most areas, resulting in widening gaps between student cohorts, lower engagement in high school, and falling standards of achievement. For 5 years, education departments have been working on initiatives they believed would lead to increases, but the outcomes have been the opposite: decreases. Instead of questioning the mechanisms underlying the modern school system, the report recommends more of the same. It’s like when people talk louder to someone who doesn’t understand them. Volume does not increase comprehension – it’s not that you are not being heard, it’s that you are not being understood.

It is interesting that the school agreement is a ‘national’ approach that involves all states coming together to collectively problem solve, when each state is its own monopoly. Most parents don’t realise that each state has its own exam board that sets the state qualification, from which no school is allowed to deviate. You cannot, for example, teach SACE in NSW – you can only teach the HSC. Maybe breaking this state monopoly would lead to diversity in provision rather than looking for convergence. The notion of being more inclusive without addressing the exclusivity of the way the system operates is paradoxical.

The fundamental issue is that we have a 19th century school system trying to operate in 21st century conditions, and none of the assumptions on which the system was built now hold true. You might be thinking that some kids are doing really well, and they are, but they are generally the children of those who did well at school. They receive additional guidance in how to navigate and succeed in the ‘game of school’, while children whose parents did not succeed are doing progressively worse. Young people who live outside sheltered middle class communities survive through their common sense, wits, and ability to use technology – none of these are specifically included in classroom learning, and they don’t count towards the ATAR.

This does not have to be the way forward. While NSW and Victoria are heralded as the pinnacles of education, South Australia is leading the way at adapting education for the future. South Australia is the only state, for example, to promote rather than ban the use of AI programs such as ChatGPT in education. This ensures that young people learn how to use the technology wisely rather than simply as a ‘cheating tool’, and they learn to critically evaluate its outputs.

SACE is achievable in many forms, with non-ATAR and ungraded routes that recognise achievements through the development of life skills. These paths allow students to prepare for life and work and achieve high school certificate outcomes while recognising that they are not prepared for university.

In addition, in South Australia there is the Inventorium. This is an online education provider that works in partnership with schools to teach school refusers and students for whom mainstream school attendance is not working. This is achieved by teaching students online, at home. The Inventorium has disrupted the traditional model while working alongside it, providing high school outcomes for students who would otherwise have none. How does it do this? It does the opposite to most of the recommendations in the school agreement overview, because it was designed using an evidence-based approach, drawing on research into why students disengage from and drop out of school. In contrast, the school reform agreement was based on information about what might be working in schools.

Inventorium students work with one teacher for every subject. This is the polar opposite from subject-specific teaching, and it means that no teacher is an expert in the areas they teach (except if the student is interested in pursuing the teacher’s previous area of expertise). The Inventorium takes this approach because it teaches students, not subjects. For all that schools talk about being student-centred, the reality is that they are system-centred. To be student-centred means that all is centred around the learning needs of the student and not the teacher. Teachers at the Inventorium teach students to learn – they do not simply provide them with access to content.

The Inventorium works with students at their own pace, on topics that are relevant to them. For example, one student might do a project on ‘how to get six people up, out, and ready for the day in a one-bathroom dwelling’. This project would demonstrate time management, maths, and organisational skills. Another student might do a project on ‘how to feed a family of six on $100 per week and maintain a nutritious, balanced diet’. This project would combine maths, science, health and wellness, and psychology. Later, the same student might research ‘how to use ChatGPT to generate job-specific resumes and cover letters for part-time work’, demonstrating ICT, English, workplace practice, and problem-solving skills.

Inventorium teachers become experts at mapping student outcomes to assessment rubrics, using the same project across different subjects as much as possible. The Inventorium’s approach is not possible in a single-subject classroom. This can only happen in South Australia, because the SACE Board has a progressive approach to the development of its qualification under the leadership of Professor Martin Westwell, who has now moved on to head the Department of Education. All education systems can learn from South Australia, if improved outcomes are genuinely being sought.

The Inventorium has a retention and completion rate of 95%, with students who would otherwise not be attending school. It works with over 100 students per year in South Australia and doubles in size each year, as more and more schools partner with it. It has proven to offer a solution to most of the issues that the School Agreement Inquiry is seeking to address, but it does so by starting with the student and rebuilding the system around them rather than continually trying to fit 21st century students (square pegs) into a 19th century system (a round hole).

Note: The Inventorium has applied to ASQA to become an RTO. This will enable it to offer its unique form of education nationally, as other state school boards are not open to accommodating its approach within their higher school certificate offerings.