Australian Greens

Having been a speaker on August 4, at the invitation of the Australian Education Union (AEU), for their Public Education Federal Election Forum, I feel compelled to comment on the wasted opportunity. The AEU could only ask the federal candidates to talk on education and then endure a night of political point scoring between Sarah Henderson and Darren Cheeseman on everything but education.

What is the connection between the failure of a Government to manage a construction project and the quality of our education programs? Would a forum on global climate change be about the management of contractor’s installation of insulation? Well, yes it probably would if any of the Liberal or Labor candidates were involved. This demonstrates the continued theme of political opportunism, and a stark absence of policy and meaningful debates on critical issues. 

We need to think about the quality of the relationship between the teacher and student; to examine how our schools are preparing students to be meaningfully engaged the creation of strong communities and as lifelong learners.  The key to this is the professional satisfaction of the teacher.

In 2007 COAG, the Coalition of Australian Governments, took their focus to the re-innovation of our early year’s education delivery and management with the concluding aim of ensuring ‘universal access to quality early childhood education in the year before school’ (Source 1).  This was a critically required intervention given early years education in Australia was rated somewhere near 13^th out of the 14 OECD nations: a sad indictment on the years of neglect of this decisive educational opportunity.  The COAG initiative resulted in “Being, Belonging, Becoming” as the guiding underlying sentiments of this policy, which sounds good but must be borne out through delivery.

Studies of the developing brain reveal the “use it or loss it” maxim is never more apt than for the first 7 years of life. Stimulus in these years determines how many of the 1000 trillion brain cells we are born with will be “pruned” or retained. The richness of the early year’s education, including formal and informal learning environs, play and relationships, music and exercise, are crucial to this time of this development. At 7 years of age, half the number of brain cells remain as a result of this “relevant pruning” and a large portion of the “hard wiring” synaptic junctions are in place. A large portion of our emotional and intelligence quotient is cast.

The world leaders in early year’s education, particularly in the Nordic counties, place an emphasis on this learning and development phase proportional to its potency in the education spectrum. The highest qualified and paid teachers are in the early year’s sector.

The Greens have committed to the provision of 2 years free quality pre-school or kindergarten for every Australian child and to lifting the professional recognition of all early year industry professionals.  At the other end of the education timeline, and to allow more Australian’s to make “Being, Belonging, Becoming” a reality, the Australian Greens are committed to the abolition and forgiving of all HECS-HELP debts.

Mike Lawrence

Greens Corangamite

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