On 1 January 2019, implementation of the National School Reform Agreement (NSRA) came into force. It has one objective: “Australian schooling provides a high quality and equitable education for all students”.
Achievement of the NSRA faces three major challenges. First, the agreement contains no definition of education. Second, most of the national policy initiatives required to achieve its single objective are subject to approval by the Education Council. Third, without approval of these national initiatives, there is room for ongoing disagreement over this country’s philosophy – our beliefs, values and understandings – with respect to education.
In other words, the NSRA is a living document, but one that has not yet articulated clearly what Australian schooling actually provides. In a context where there is no definition of education and no philosophical agreement, could education become confused with indoctrination?
Australia’s Judeo-Christian Foundations
Currently, Australian schooling boasts a range of independent, public, denominational, secular and philosophically diverse schools. These differences enable our students to enjoy freedom, choice and diversity. In other words, while unique in their own way, they preserve Judeo-Christian traditions – the foundations for the nation’s many freedoms and opportunities.
Or do they?
Reconciliation Australia and Australia’s Customs
Reconciliation Australia (RA), a not-for-profit entity, operates on a budget comprising $10.3 million from the Federal government (2017), and $11 million from the Just Jeans and Myer empires. It produces materials for schools, pre-schools and childcare centres.
Through its branch organisation, Narragunnawali, children as young as three years are introduced to a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which contains 14 obligatory beliefs.
These include ‘acknowledgement of country’ and ‘reconciliation discussions’ as daily routines and agreement that ‘young’ and ‘fair’ in our national anthem demonstrate bias toward white-skinned people. Reconciliation Australia’s vision is ‘based on five inter-related dimensions: race relations, equality and equity, institutional integrity, unity and historical acceptance’. Their philosophy is that ‘Australia can only achieve full reconciliation if we progress in all five’.
To achieve these goals, they believe non-Indigenous Australians must ‘make a commitment to take ownership and responsibility for their own learning’, and to ‘right their wrongs’ through the long process of reconciliation.
RA has a $22.3 million budget that equips them to deliver this philosophy. Hundreds of corporate, not-for-profit and government agencies, including the Federal Labor Party, have signed up to a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).
Are these RAP practices fair and impartial? Is a RAP a tool for education or for indoctrination?
Defining Australia’s Future
The National School Reform Agreement (NSRA) has one objective: “Australian schooling provides a high quality and equitable education for all students”. Despite the absence of clarity and agreement about education and educational philosophy, an equitable education for all students might be possible right now.
On 26 January 1788, the two French frigates of the La Pérouse expedition sailed into Botany Bay and the British First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson. Even though the French set sail for home soon after, and were much later found to have come to grief in the Solomon Islands, the British stayed. They raised the flag at Sydney Cove and European settlement was established. Indigenous tribes would no longer live in isolation as they had for more than 50,000 years.
26 January 1788 marked the beginning of a new nation. It also marked the beginning of a resolution of race relations, equality and equity, institutional integrity, unity, and historical acceptance – all of which Reconciliation Australia is seeking. With more clarity and consensus, the NSRA and its quest for equitable education for all just might be the answer. Indoctrination, however, is certainly not.
Copyright © Cheryl Lacey 2019
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Cheryl Lacey is an educationist and advocate of agitating change in Australian education to face global challenges facing Australia and Australians.
If you would like to learn more about the outcomes achieved by educational leaders and teams who have worked with me, contact me at cheryl@cheryllacey.com or visit www.cheryllacey.com
