The McKell Institute - 'Making It Count'

* CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY * 

I want to thank The McKell Institute for bringing us together today. 

Bill McKell is a Labor hero. 

He was a kid who never made it to high school, but he made it to the highest office in the land. 

When he was 13 he had to leave school because his dad left his mum, and he had to look after his younger brothers and sisters. 

He grew up fast. He got a job as a message boy and then an apprenticeship as a boilermaker. 

By the time he was 22 he was the assistant secretary of the boilermaker’s union.

By 26 he was in Parliament. By 29 he was Minister for Justice.  He didn’t have a law degree, but he studied it at night, and he was admitted to the bar five years later. 

That alone tells you the sort of extraordinary person I am talking about. But Bill McKell is more than that. 

And more than just one of the greatest Premiers NSW has ever had. Or finest Governors General our country has ever produced.

He’s more than that too. 

What makes him a Labor hero is the legacy he left. 

He helped make the model that people like Curtin and Chifley, Hawke and Keating and Wran and Carr followed. 

And that we still seek to follow today. 

Labor Governments that are pragmatic and practical. Labor Governments that get things done. 

Governments that dominated their opponents because they occupied the middle ground. And cemented in the big reforms they made because they kept on winning. 

And this Institute is part of that legacy.

It’s particularly meaningful that I get to make this speech here, where a new university campus is about to be born.

A long time ago I used to catch the train from Cabramatta to Central, and then the bus from Eddy Avenue out to the University of NSW. 

There and back. Three hours a day. 

I did that for about eight years. 

Chasing a law degree. 

So did lots of others. This is where millions of us live. 

But for some of my mates that train ride was more like a brick wall. 

University was somewhere else for someone else. 

And you can still see that today. 

One in two young Australians have a university degree today. But not everywhere. 

Where I grew up it’s about half that. 

That’s why what’s about to happen here means so much to me. 

This time next year this place will be alive with law students. 

I wish you did it 35 years ago. 

But I am glad you are doing it now. It shows you get it. 

The change I am trying to make. 

To remake our education system. 

Make it better and fairer. 

And part of that is this. Bringing universities closer to where people need them. 

This isn’t a big sandstone building or a sprawling campus. But it is a perfect example of the sort of future we have to forge. 

Today I want to talk to you about the future. 

It’s one of the privileges of this job. I get to see it every time I walk into a classroom. 

And I’ve got to tell you there’s a lot to be optimistic about. 

Our kids are smart and they’re ambitious. They’re big hearted. And they can do anything if given a chance. 

But we have to make sure they get that chance.  That opportunity. 

And the truth is not all kids do. 

Kids from poor families, kids from outside our big cities, aren’t just less likely to go uni. 

They are also less likely to finish school. They’re more likely to fall behind at school. And they’re more likely to start behind. 

That’s not because of a lack of talent. Talent is everywhere. It’s opportunity that’s not. And that’s what we are trying to change. 

That’s what the Universities Accord is about. Opening the doors of our universities wider. 

That’s happening right now. 

When I got this job four and a half years ago, 274,000 Australians started a university degree.

That’s not counting medical students or demand driven places. 

Next year that number will be about 354,000. 

That’s a jump of about 30 per cent. 

That’s big. 

And it’s just the start. 

The legislation that passed the Parliament a few weeks ago means an extra 230,000 people will get a crack at university over the next ten years.

A couple of years ago we passed laws that meant if you are an Indigenous kid and you have what it takes to take on a university degree you get a guaranteed place at university. 

Since then, the number of Indigenous students starting a university degree is up 24 per cent. 

This legislation we have just passed, means the same sort of thing for all kids from poor families. All kids from the regions. And all kids from the bush. 

If you get the marks, if you have got what it takes, you will get a place. 

At the other end of the education system, we are doing the same sort thing. 

The way the early education system used to work is if you didn’t have a job or you weren’t studying you didn’t get the Child Care Subsidy. 

What that meant in reality was poor kids missed out.  And they’re the ones who need early education the most. 

That’s now changed. It’s been replaced with a three day guarantee. 

It means every child is guaranteed access to the Child Care Subsidy three days a week. 

It means the number of poor families who can access subsidised care three days a week has now increased by 23 per cent. 

That’s potentially life changing. 

They’re the bookends of the system. Early education and higher education. 

But what happens in the middle is even more important. 

Those thirteen frenetic years where everything seems to happen. 

Where kids become adults. And where the challenge is the greatest. 

Think about this. 

One in ten kids today are below what we used to call the minimum standard for reading and maths. 

But it’s one of three kids from poor families. That’s what the NAPLAN data tells us. 

It also tells us that most of those kids will never catch up. 

They’re the kids who don’t finish school.  Whose opportunities are cut short. 

And most of those kids are in our public schools. 

There are some people who say the solution is money. There are others who say it’s reform. 

The truth is it’s both.  

And the fact is no Government has done enough of either. 

David Gonski gave us a formula 15 years ago for how to fund schools based on need. 

But it’s never been fully implemented. 

Non-government schools are funded at the level that David said they should be or on track to be. But most public schools aren’t. Or weren’t.

The agreements we have now signed with every State and Territory fix that. 

It means an extra $20 billion for public schools over the next 10 years. And an extra $50 billion in the decade after that.  

It means our public schools are finally going to be funded properly. 

It means the funding wars are over. 

But it’s not just money. It’s about what you use it for. 

We have got to do two things at once here, if we really want to shift the dial. 

We have got to fund schools based on need. And we have got to reform what happens in the classroom based on evidence. 

And if the funding wars are over, so are the reading wars. 

We know what works. Phonics works. 

The UK did this over a decade ago and now they are racing up the international rankings. 

We didn’t. And we are paying the price. Our kids missed out on a lost decade of reform. 

Now that’s changing too. 

This year we rolled out for the first time ever a Year 1 Phonics Check right across the country. 

What the Poms did 14 years ago. 

What it shows is in schools where children are taught to read using phonics we see massive improvements. 

I will give you one example. 

At Briar Road Public School in Campbelltown, they started teaching children to read using phonics a couple of years ago. 

They did a Phonics check when they started. 26 per cent of kids passed. This year they did it again. 81 per cent passed. 

That’s what phonics can do. And that’s what we have got to keep rolling out. 

The UK also did something else a decade ago. They fixed their curriculum.  

They made it simpler. They made it easier to teach. Made it full of the things students need to know. 

We need to do that too. 

And this week we took a major step in that direction. 

This week Education Ministers agreed to big changes to how we teach maths. 

From next year we will start to rollout changes to the maths curriculum for Kindergarten to Year 2. 

We have made it simpler. We have made it easier to understand what students need to learn. And in what order. 

That’s important because maths is sequential. To build knowledge you have to learn certain things before you learn others. 

We’ve also agreed to start work on the next chunk of the curriculum that needs fixing. That’s maths from Years 3 to 6. 

And part of that will be a bigger focus on basic financial literacy. 

Financial literacy is already part of the maths curriculum, but most of it isn’t mandatory. 

We are looking to change that. 

To help make sure young people get the skills they need for life. 

Part of that is learning about dollars and sense.

That work will be done next year. 

And we will keep doing it. We’ll keep fixing the curriculum. Chunk by chunk. 

That’s not the only decision Education Ministers made this week. 

We also agreed to do something that’s been talked about for a long time.  And never happened. 

We agreed to create a single body that will be responsible for the national curriculum, national testing, national teacher standards, teacher training and the evidence that tells us what works. 

It will be called the Australian Teaching and Learning Commission. 

I have been in this job long enough to see the problems and limitations of getting four or more different organisations to do this work. 

Bringing them together will create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts. 

That’s more efficient and more useful for teachers who don’t think about these things separately.  

It will also help us to drive the sort of reform that’s required to make sure more kids get the skills they need and more kids finish school. 

It’s big reform, and I will introduce the legislation to implement it next year. 

What I really want to talk to you today about is a reckoning that I think is happening in education. 

When I was a kid the only computers at school were in a special room. The phones were connected to the wall. And tick tock was what clocks did. 

It’s a different world today. 

If you’re a parent of a toddler or a teenager you can see the impact screens are having. 

You can’t not. 

How it fries their attention span. How it turns them into zombies. 

But I think most of us thought the classroom was different. That if our kids weren’t using a tablet or a laptop at school they were missing out. And the more they used it the better. 

Turns out that’s not exactly right. 

The evidence is pretty clear that if you write something down with a pen you absorb and retain that information better than if you type it. 

There is also a fair bit of evidence that kids who spend a lot of time at school in front of a screen do worse than those who don’t. 

That’s world wide. 

And Australian students spend more time in front of a screen than most. The average across the OECD is 1.7 hours a day. In Australia it’s about two and a half.

And that screen is not always used for school work.  

That’s why some teachers tell me they have taken to teaching at the back of the classroom - to keep an eye on what’s on the screen. 

That’s why I have said we need a digital detox. 

I’m not talking about burning iPads. But I am talking about dialling it back.

AI creates other challenges. 

There’s the obvious one. How do you know the student wrote the essay, not AI?

The next one is how is this affecting our kids? How much are they actually learning? 

A major study of 26,000 Chinese high school students this year gives us an idea. 

It found that AI increased homework marks by 18 per cent, but reduced exam marks by 20 to 24 per cent. 

Why? They call it cognitive outsourcing. It basically means you’re not learning. Not as much.

Now think about how this works at primary school.

There’s a reason we don’t give kids a calculator in Kindergarten. They have got to learn how to count before we give them tools to do it at speed. 

They also have to learn how to think. Working things out manually is a bit like taking your brain to the gym. It builds up those mental muscles. Critical thinking and problem solving skills.   

There is a bit of evidence that AI can undermine this. What’s called cognitive stunting. 

Scary right?

It’s why New York and LA have hit the pause button on the use of AI in primary schools. 

We had a big conversation about all of this on Monday and we agreed to do a number of things. 

First, all States and Territories agreed to set or consider screen time limits. 

Second, NAPLAN writing tests in primary school are going to go back to pen and paper. 

Third, restrict the use of AI in primary schools. 

Fourth, restrict the use of AI in high school assessments. 

And fifth, set up a Digital Detox Taskforce to collect the evidence, survey students, teachers and parents, and provide us with advice on what further action we should take next year. 

What I have talked about today is the sort of skills our kids need. 

Literacy. Numeracy. Critical thinking. Problem solving skills. 

That’s what schools do. 

But they don’t just do that. 

They also help build character. 

What we learn at school shapes the values we have and people we become. 

It also helps us understand what makes this kaleidoscopic country tick. 

I have always thought we’re the sort of country that rubs off on you. 

The basic things that make Australia what it is. 

That easy going idea that we treat everyone equally.  That everyone deserves a fair go and that we look after each other.

But it’s also true that not everyone thinks that. Not everyone does it. 

We trust each other less and we trust our institutions less than we used to. 

It’s not realistic to think schools can fix all of that. But they can help. 

Kids aren’t born racist. They aren’t born hating anybody. It’s something that’s learnt. That’s taught. 

In Bondi last year we have seen what that can metastasise into. 

We didn’t just make changes to the maths curriculum this week. We also agreed to major changes to the curriculum to help prevent and tackle antisemitism. 

That includes the teaching of the Holocaust. What happened, and the causes and consequences of it. 

It also includes an understanding of Jewish history and culture and the contributions Jewish Australians have made to our country. 

That will also start to roll out from next year.

It’s part of the work done by the Antisemitism Education Taskforce led by David Gonski. 

That Taskforce wraps up next month, but David’s work is not done. 

I can announce today that he will head up the new Social Cohesion Education Advisory Council.

It will look at what further steps we need to make to the curriculum to prevent and tackle racism and hate in all its forms. 

It will also provide us with advice on how to better embed the teaching of Australian values into the curriculum. 

And on Monday we agreed to take that a step further. 

I said trust in our institutions is down. Knowledge about them isn’t that great either. 

I have often thought primary school kids know more about Parliament and how it works than high school kids. 

Research ACARA released last year shows that’s true. 

It also shows general knowledge about civics (about how our country works) has dropped to its lowest level since testing began in 2004. 

Democracy doesn’t run on autopilot. 

You have got to pass it on from one generation to the next. What it is and what it requires. 

That’s why this week we asked ACARA to provide us with options to strengthen civics and citizenship education - particularly in high school. 

More to the point, where it should be mandatory in Years 9 and 10. 

Some students do it now. But not enough. This would mean every high school student learns about the Constitution, how laws are made, how the legal system works, how democracy works, how Australia works. 

I didn’t grow up in a political family. 

I can’t remember us really talking about it at home. 

I think my first memory of politics was seeing Bob Hawke on the tele after we won the America’s Cup saying: “any boss that sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”. 

If anyone got me interested in politics I think it was my history teacher Peter Valenti.

We are still mates today. I don’t think he votes Labor. He certainly didn’t tell me I should. 

He took me in a time machine back to ancient battlefields. He taught me dates and deeds. 

But he did more than that. He taught me that public service isn’t a job you do. It’s an action you take. 

That’s never left me.

Veronica mentioned John Dawkins. 

I am so very lucky to have this job and to now have had it for all this time. 

And for that I am forever indebted to my friend and boss Anthony Albanese. 

But the truth is it’s not the days in the job that really count. It’s what you do with them. 

John Dawkins made them count. 

The higher education system that exists today is his invention. HECS kicked the doors of our universities open. 

You just have to look at the massive increase in the number of students at university after it came in to see that. 

I mentioned that Bill McKell studied law at night while he was a Minister.

Dawkins did too. 

He told me a funny story the other day that when he was Minister for Education there was talk of shutting down the Law School at Macquarie University. So he enrolled.  

He wanted to send a message that what was happening there was valuable.

Just like what UNSW is doing right here, right now.  

When he was asked about this job John once said: “the great thing about being the Minister for Education was that it takes 20 years to work out whether your policies resulted in success or failure and by that time, everyone has forgotten who you were.”

Well John Dawkins is impossible to forget. His fingerprints are everywhere I go. And his success is indisputable. 

And not just in higher education. 

The Hawke and Keating Governments are known for many things. Perhaps one of the least known but most important is this.

When they were elected barely 35 per cent of kids finished school. By the time they left almost 80 per cent did.

That’s nation changing stuff. 

The sort of country we are today isn’t possible without that. 

It’s Labor that does these sort of things.

We are what Manning Clark called “the enlargers”.  

The ones who shift the dial. Who bring big ideas to life. 

If we are going to be the country that lives in our imagination we need to be. 

In the decades ahead it won’t just be 80 per cent of Australians who finish school. 80 per cent will go on to TAFE or university as well. 

That won’t happen without the sort of things I have talked about today. And more. Much more.