TIME TO BREAK THE STATE MONOPOLY ON EDUCATION ASSESSMENT?

The Daniel Andrews Question

Living as I do in Adelaide, when Daniel Andrews, pre-pandemic, asked the question on national TV ‘why would anyone want to go to South Australia’ I was disappointed and surprised at the stupidity of the statement. And I suspect he’s eating his words now! However, he opened my eyes to the blinkered thinking and competition that occurs between States and how this is actually hindering the progress of the education system and the future success of Australians. Let me explain.

Having spent years trying to work with State Exam Boards to map the Inventorium to their curriculum, the only one that allows for our students to succeed in a way that is equal to traditional school teaching, in terms of issuing the same certificate, is South Australia (the SACE Board). It is possible to get a full SACE, with or without an ATAR depending on subject choices made, using a problem and inquiry-based pedagogy that is not suitable for examinations. No other State has the ability to award their full certificate without examinations. 

Choose Your Own Exam Board

So everyone in Victoria stuck with lockdowns, facing a VCE Board making judgements on how C19 has impacted their students individually, could submit for SACE instead and have their work rewarded on merit for what they have done, rather than compensated for what someone approximates that they have not done. Parents just need to argue the case with their kid’s school and get them to shift. There is no legal impediment to them doing so.

Imagine if we took this further and actively broke down the State monopoly on Exam Boards altogether. In Britain there are multiple assessment boards that offer GCSE and A level qualifications and schools’ select which they choose to ‘buy’ and work with. What if that happened here? What if any school in Australia got to choose which State Boards it worked with for each subject they chose to teach, or even the whole qualification. What would be the effect?

The Impact of Choice on Assessment Innovation

Well, firstly I suspect the VCAA would come up with a far more egalitarian approach to issuing the VCE this year as schools would be jumping ship to SACE at a rate of knots to secure fairer results for their students. They, and WACE, might also review the rigidity of their curriculum requirements overall as I suspect many schools in Victoria and WA in particular would be keen to explore more flexible approaches.

Secondly, I suspect that NESA in NSW would find it took them a lot less than 10 years to respond to their recent curriculum review and implement change, because I doubt schools will use them for the 10 years in the interim when they could use other State Boards instead. I suspect there would be a draft in a year, and it would be implemented in two.

Third we would start to see really innovative assessments being developed as Boards competed with each other to attract schools and students

And finally, we might see some Boards really specialise in some areas to truly become world experts in the assessment of X or Y.

Increased Accountability

I’m actually struggling to see a downside to this change in policy and practice (no legislative change required) other than possibly the few hundred people who work for the exam boards might suddenly feel pressured and stressed – but is this not better than the thousands of kids that their stranglehold is currently impacting? And if they are doing a good job – they have nothing to worry about. Schools will happily be signing up to their qualifications in droves.

What such a change does do is make State Boards accountable to schools and earn their existence rather than being guaranteed a monopoly market for which there is little accountability. 

There is more than a decade of research noting that the education system needs to change, from Ken Robinson (2010) to the Government Gonski reviews (2018), to the latest report from Watterston and Zhao (2020) just released. But no real systemic change has resulted. Breaking the assessment monopoly could be the first step forwards in driving systemic change throughout the system, and it does not require any legislative change, just a change in policy and practice. 

To Answer Daniel Andrew’s Question

I suspect the answer to Daniel Andrew’s question ‘why would anyone want to come to South Australia’ might be ‘for our Education’. Let’s relax the practice of State monopolies and see what happens. My money is on South Australia leading the way and hats off the SACE Board led by Professor Martin Westwell for having the leadership, vision and know-how to design a truly inclusive qualification.

REFERENCES

Gonski et al (2018) Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools. Commonwealth of Australia. @ https://www.education.gov.au/educationalexcellencereview

Sir Ken Robinson (2010) Changing Education Paradigms. @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Watterston, J. & Zhao, Y. (2020). A Catalyst for Change [Issues paper]. Retrieved from https://rms.isq.qld.edu.au/files/Weblive_OSOF/Catalyst_for_change_2020.pdf