important features associated with Australia’s educational policy
As per the views of Hardy (2018), one of the most important features associated with Australia’s educational policy is that it has resulted in increasing the performance of Australia students to a great extent. The curriculum and other areas related to the policy have been developed so that the performance of Australian students is very high compared to the international standards (PWC, 2014). The high performance, in comparison with the international standard, also reflects Australia’s educational policy’s overall effectiveness and efficiencies.
Contrary to this, Zajda (2020) has argued that budget cuts are a vital issue faced in the context of the Australian education system, and the policy has not been effective in terms of addressing or dealing with this issue. It was back in the year 2017 when the education minister of Australia announced a cut or reduction of $2.2 Billion in university funding. The entire system has been affected a lot because of the same (McGowan, 2017).
The policy has not been appropriate in providing the required financial aid and support to the educational institutes and schools in the country. The cut has also resulted in creating immense pressure on universities as well as the teaching faculties because of the universities failed to access the additional commonwealth grants. Australia’s educational policy is also directed towards carrying out appropriate promotion of social development. Still, such announcements by the educational minister resulted in freezing the overall rate of participation and enrolment o students coming from low social and economic backgrounds.
According to Ledger (2018), Australia’s educational policy is very effective and appropriate because it has initiated and encouraged student-focused education in the entire country. This has further supported social developments. For example, in situations where the teachers came across the fact that the students in the classroom or universities are not able to learn correctly, they change their teaching method on an immediate basis.
The educational policy in the country has been developed to provide complete freedom to the teachers in the context of changing their methods and style of teaching (Debroy, 2018).
Furthermore, the policy is also inclined towards providing education to students in such a manner that they become well rounded in different aspects and areas. Instead of focusing only on academics, the policy is also directed towards encouraging ample extracurricular and sports-related activities. However, Jungblut & Woelert (2018) have argued that irrespective of the existing effectiveness, certain aspects of the educational policy in Australia are not consistent with the optimum performance. For example, the policy can develop an education system that can operate as a cohesive whole.
At present, the entire system relies heavily on the concept of dual funding, where it is getting financial resources from state governments and commonwealth. The policy has also failed to address the issue of schools’ and universities’ findings being affected by different layers of influence. According to Torii, Fox & Cloney (2017), the policy developed by the government of Australia in the context of education can be termed as highly effective as it promotes equitable and personalized education.
The policy has encouraged the teachers to make students a well-integrated and essential part of university or school. This has further resulted in helping the students to foster their skills in the best possible manner. The teachers are also encouraged to provide the required level of support and assistance to the students so that their all-round development can be done.
On the contrary to this, Yasukawa & Osmond (2019) have argued that the education policy in Australia needs a lot of improvements as it has been failed to close the gap in the context of providing equal education to all. For example, the overall performance of students in the country is strongly tied to their social and economic status. This has further resulted in reflecting the policy’s incompetence. The Aboriginal students in Australia are the most disadvantaged group, and these students are way behind their peers in the context of subjects such as science and maths