John Polesel

The impact of high-stakes testing on curriculum and pedagogy: a teacher perspective from Australia

Debates continue about how high-stakes testing regimes influence schools at all levels: their impact on teaching practices, distribution of resources and curriculum provision, and whether they achieve the intended increases in student achievement in targeted areas. In 2008, the Australian government introduced a national testing scheme, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), in which all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are required to participate, and a national website, MySchool, was established in 2010 to publish the results of all schools. This paper reports on the first national study of educators’ views on the impact of NAPLAN on Australian schools and students. Over 8000 educators from all states and territories participated in the study, and the findings indicate that the testing regime is leading to a reduction in time spent on other curriculum areas and adjustment of pedagogical practice and curriculum content to mirror the tests. The findings suggest that the modification of teaching and curricular practices is in response to concerns regarding the use and reporting of NAPLAN data and the potential impact on schools. This confirms findings of researchers in other countries on the capacity of high-stakes regimes to distort teaching practices, constrain the curriculum and narrow students’ educational experiences.

School Dropout and Completion

School dropout remains a persistent and critical problem in many school systems. Nations have come to rely on successful completion of schooling for establishing careers and accessing post-compulsory qualifications. However, young people do not complete their schooling and are therefore excluded from these advantages. As a result they face consequences such as higher likelihood of unemployment, lower earnings, greater dependence on welfare and poorer physical health and well-being. This book compares the various approaches taken by many western nations to reduce drop out and raise school completion rates. This is done by evaluating the impact of these approaches on rates of dropout and completion. Case studies of national systems are used to highlight the different approaches including institutional arrangements and the various alternative secondary school programs and their outcomes.

Democratising the Curriculum or Training the Children of the Poor: School-Based Vocational Training in Australia.

Historically grounded in a tradition of meeting local skills needs and training the children of the poor, vocational education and training (VET) in schools continues to struggle in terms of esteem and parity of status. Associated in the literature with the training of a reliable and compliant class of workers, it has also been tainted by its links to the processes of social selection and its lowly status in the hierarchy of school subjects. However, VET has also been proposed as a means of democratising the school curriculum and improving accessibility for marginalised populations. The evidence presented in this article suggests that VET provision in Australian schools is of relatively poor quality and furthermore is associated with significant levels of social selection – rather than democratisation. The Australian policy framework, strait‐jacketed by the belief that it must avoid narrow instrumentalism, has allowed and assisted the evolution of a low quality, low‐intensity VET regime which serves a mainly working‐class clientele in mainly working‐class schools. In reviewing the current Australian evidence, it argues that if the central debate is one between the competing demands of achieving equity (which is associated with comprehensive provision) and that of achieving quality VET (which is associated with tracked provision) then, sadly, Australia fails to deliver effectively on either of these aims.

Letting schools off the hook? Exploring the role of Australian secondary schools in the COAG Year 12 attainment agenda

In 2009, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) set a target to lift Australia’s Year 12 or equivalent attainment rate from 83.5 to 90% by 2015. In the context of global financial uncertainty, the target was rationalised as a means for boosting national productivity and developing human capital to help Australia compete in the global knowledge economy. Historically, Year 12 attainment targets have been designed to pressure state and territory education systems to innovate and reform senior secondary curriculums and certificates, as retention and attainment rates depend largely on how flexible, diverse and inclusive the senior years are. In this paper, however, we argue that the COAG Year 12 attainment agenda is flawed and does very little to inspire innovation or reform in Australian senior secondary schools. Our argument comprises three parts. First, we argue that the COAG agenda is based on a weakened measure of attainment which is misleading and directs the burden for innovation away from senior secondary schools. Second, we argue that there are inherent limits in Australian secondary school systems which prevent the depth of innovation required to significantly contribute to raising Year 12 attainment. Third, we argue that the COAG agenda is further weakened by issues of equivalency, quality and comparison. Together, these arguments cast doubt over the value and meaningfulness of the COAG Year 12 attainment agenda and of target setting as a governmental strategy in this context.

Vocational education and training in schools in victoria: an appraisal six years down the track

Abstract This article examines the impact of an initiative designed to integrate vocational education and training in the senior school leaving certificate in the Australian state of Victoria. Drawing on two studies of senior secondary school students conducted by the Educational Outcomes Research Unit at the University of Melbourne, it attempts to assess whether, on the basis of data available to date, the VET in Schools programme has been a success. The article describes the programmes features and the way it has attempted to integrate general and vocational education within a common leaving certificate – the Victorian Certificate of Education. It presents data comparing the attitudes to workplace learning of students enrolled in the VET in Schools programme and students not enrolled in the programme. Finally, it presents data on the labour market and study destinations of students graduating from the programme. The article finds that the programme has been remarkably successful in terms of enrolment growth, positive attitudes to workplace learning and successful transitions to work and further study.

Deferring a University Offer in Rural Australia

Atrend of increasing regional disadvantage is suggested in the pattern of rising rates of deferral of university places amongst rural school-completers in Australia. Cost-related factors and financial barriers are prominent in the reasons given by these young people for deferring a place at university. These trends formed the impetus for a study of the destinations of rural school-completers in the Australian state of Victoria, the findings of which are reported in this article. The issue of theoretical and practical interest that this article examines is whether this phenomenon of deferral constitutes a disadvantage for these young people. Are these deferrers ‘lost’ to the system? Do they eventually take up their places? Are some groups less likely to take them up than others? What happens to the rest? Of particular interest is the question regarding what barriers might prevent some groups from taking up their place. And finally, what is the experience of those who enter university? Do they continue and thrive in their studies? This article considers these questions in the context of data outlining the destinations of non-metropolitan deferrers in their second year out of school.

Reform and Reaction: Creating New Education and Training Structures in Italy.

Despite concerns regarding Italy’s high levels of early school‐leaving, regional differences in educational outcomes and persistent inequalities, efforts to reform the country’s complex system of senior secondary schooling have been repeatedly frustrated. Regarded by the left as contributing to the reproduction of social inequalities, Italy’s dual‐track system of academic and vocational secondary schools has been the focus of many reform efforts, for the most part unsuccessful. Recent proposals for reform, initiated by the recently deposed right‐wing Government coalition, reflected a very different approach to change, reinforcing the division between the academic and the vocational in Italy’s schools and largely devolving responsibility for vocational education and training to the regions. This article examines the proposals and concludes that, like past initiatives, they were largely ideologically driven, focusing on the structures of schooling rather than teaching and learning. The article points to the need for the current Government to base change on a strong theoretical foundation and on focused research into the outcomes of schooling for different student groups.

The marginalisation of VET in an Australian secondary school

It has been argued that the culture and traditions of secondary schooling explicitly exclude vocational learning from the mission of secondary schools. Analyses have further highlighted the role played by vocational learning in sifting and sorting students by social background. In many continental systems, Germany, France or Italy for example, the fragmentation of the upper secondary curriculum into general and vocational tracks has been the means by which the ‘integrity’ of the academic stream has been maintained. In the Australian context, the abolition of technical schools in favour of a more comprehensive model of provision has not erased existing social inequalities. This article argues that the maintenance of the dominant academic curriculum and its associated forms of knowledge has involved a number of processes designed to exclude or accommodate different kinds of learners, to marginalise applied learning pedagogies and curricula and to ensure differentiated learning experiences for different sub-groups of young people. Drawing on views and perspectives of students and teachers in a large secondary school in an industrial provincial city of Australia, this article presents an analysis of the school-level processes which have contributed to the construction of the learner identity of students in vocational programs in Australian schools.

Vocational education and training (VET) and young people: The pathway of the poor?

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to consider the role played by vocational education and training (VET) for young people in Australia.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an analysis and synthesis of the existing research and literature, including the authors own body of research in the field, regarding VET delivered in schools and in adult sector institutions.Findings – This research presents evidence that VET in Schools (VETiS) constitutes an important and significant curriculum reform in upper secondary schooling, but that it is usually offered at the most basic qualification levels within the subject model paradigm of senior secondary certificates. Its heavy use by young people from disadvantaged backgrounds raises concerns regarding social selection and it suffers from problems of low esteem and variable quality, with its place often questioned within the traditional academic culture of secondary schooling. With respect to adult VET providers, the article argues that the role of TAF...

The development of vocational programs in secondary schools: Victoria and the European tradition

Fourteen years ago, Goodson argued that, despite radical changes in the structures of schooling, “the underlying fabric of curriculum has remained surprisingly constant” (Goodson 1993: 22), with the academic curriculum continuing to dominate the operations of secondary schools. He went on to note that practical or vocational studies, despite their growing role in the secondary school curriculum, continued to be regarded as lower status curriculum options (Goodson 1993: 22). The view that school subjects are manifestations of the social construction of knowledge and that they occupy a status hierarchy has become an accepted part of educational scholarship since the work of Bernstein (1971, 1973, 1977) and Goodson (1993, 1997). This is particularly true in recent analyses of the growth in vocational subjects in schools or using Goodson’s language, the utilitarian curriculum. The marginal status of the vocational curriculum is linked in academic discourse to its undistinguished lineage as an option for the children of the poor. Its low status has also been linked to its lack of examination-sanctioned credibility and to its very recent entry to the realm of secondary schooling. Tensions between a view that vocational studies have democratised the curriculum and a view that they have contributed to social segregation along the lines of socioeconomic status have further weakened their credibility as a social and economic tool in public policy. Contributing to this weakness has been policy vacillation regarding the most effective mechanisms of delivery; this ranges from delivery in differentiated settings, where it is argued that the culture and status of VET are defended from the hostile encroachment of the academic curriculum but in which social (and often precipitate) segregation is the inevitable outcome, to delivery in comprehensive settings, where it is argued that greater permeability between the academic and vocational tracks is permitted, but where the cultural dominance of academic studies dilutes the quality and status of vocational programs. In relation to the argument over democratisation, the increasing value of vocational subjects in catering for the growing numbers of children completing secondary school has been acknowledged (Polesel 2000; Malley et al. 2001; Teese