Over the past few years, I’ve read a lot of books about education. Most of them sound impressive and I’m sure that a lot of people will read a particular one and go, “Yes, that’s it, that’s what’s wrong with the education system and if only schools would all do this then everything would be fixed…”
The trouble with nearly every idea on education is that the person writing the book has started with an assumed aim about the purpose of education and then worked backwards to show us that the best way to achieve this purpose is to adopt a particular strategy by presenting all sorts of evidence about how it’s worked really well in such and such a place and therefore it should work everywhere.
Often they’re not wrong.
The trouble is that their original assumption about the purpose of educating our young people may not be shared by everyone. Usually this isn’t obvious because their aim isn’t explicitly stated or else it’s expressed in terms that nobody could disagree with like:
“Schools need to be places of empowerment where we give students the skills to be self-actualised, articulate leaders taking their place in a global 21st Century world where they can thrive as literate, numerate adults with the capacity to shape their lives in positive ways.”
Now, who could disagree with that? Certainly nobody ever says: “The aim of schools is to spend a few years giving kids some basic skills and after that we have to fill in their time for a number of years after because someone got rid of this child labour laws so we can’t send the difficult ones out to work in the fields or the factories once they turn seven…”
If you believe the aim of school is to maximise academic success, you can dismiss a lot of the subjects and activities as a distraction. On the other hand, if you feel that the aim of school is to create future workers, you may be dismissive of academia and, depending on your focus, you may think it should be developing practical, hands-on capabilities or soft skills like team-work and communication. On yet the third hand, you may feel that the aim is to develop happy, well-balanced individuals who have fulfilling lives following their dreams and not worrying about the fact that they only have two hands.
These are not the only ideas that people have about the function of schools, so it’s not wonder that education becomes a bit of a political football. If schools start succeeding in a particular area, someone will undoubtedly say, “Yes, but what about Latin? We’re neglecting Latin and when I said to a teenager the other day barba crescit caput nescit, he had no idea what I meant!”
And so this is one of the main problems with any educational improvement. When students were first allowed to use biros last century, some people decried it because they wouldn’t learn to mix their own ink. Until we have a clear agreed idea of what society wants from its education system, there’ll always be a haphazard chaotic approach that succeeds in some areas and fails in others, only to refuse this trend when people demand that schools stop doing what they’re succeeding at, in order to address the areas where they’re failing.
Which brings us to politics. Political parties usually have two clear aims:
- To achieve particular objectives such as the redistribution of wealth. (In some cases making wealth more equally distributed; in others directing it to a particular group)
- Winning government so that they can achieve their objectives.
Obviously it’s better when both these things align, but sometimes political parties find it… I am unsure whether to use the word “necessary” or the word “expedient” here… Let’s settle on “easier”… Sometimes political parties find it easier to let people know what they plan after the election. This doesn’t mean that every broken promise was a lie, any more than it means that an elected government are telling the truth when they say that this will be good for you in the long run.
Over the past several decades, it’s usually only been Labor or the Liberals in Coalition with the Nationals who’ve been able to aspire to achieving the second aim. The minor parties have usually had to work to persuade or manoeuvre the government party into making some sort of deal, just like Jacqui Lambie did when she repealed the Medevac laws. In return she got something that she couldn’t tell us about but whatever it was she got a promise that the Coalition would do it. Similarly, The Greens pushed for concessions before they passed the legislated emissions target.
When you don’t have to worry about the second aim because you have no chance of forming government in the near future, your path is clear. You do what you can to get as much of what you want as possible. This means that you don’t have to worry about the consequences in quite the same way. You’re able to play to your audience with the knowledge that it’s likely you’ll still wield the same about power after the next election so you’re more concerned with keeping your support base onside than winning over the swinging voters.
If we look at recent events, we can see that The Greens are still behaving like a minor party. However, while they’re holding up the Housing Future fund legislation in order to get what they want, the motives of the Coalition are different. Peter Dutton seems to be taking the Abbott path of stopping Labor achieving anything so that they can say, “Look, this party hasn’t done anything, so vote for us.”
This tactic gave some success to Abbott and had some suggesting that he was the most effective Opposition leader in our history. In fact, he was so good at being Opposition leader he continued to perform as Opposition leader once he became PM, preferring to attack Labor rather than get on with the business of government.
In Dutton’s case, it seems that he’s starting to behave more like the leader of a minor party, rather than one who is the alternative government. He seems to be playing to his rusted-on base rather than trying to win back seats from either Labor or the Independents. However, rather than trying to use his power to extract small concessions from the government, he seems content to issue a flat no and leave it to The Greens to push the government further to the left.
If I were advising Dutton, I’d suggest that he start learning how to compromise with Labor like a minor party would because the way things are going, his Liberals may end up being one before too long.
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