Schools, teachers, the market and culture – Education in Australia

The growing trend in recent years of low-level academic achievers entering into the teaching profession is a worrying phenomenon. Statistics released in May 2012 indicate that “Education was the least popular course for school leavers with the highest university entrance scores, with only 5 per cent of offers made to students with an Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) above 90.05.”, and  “Almost 22 per cent of offers in education courses were made to students with ATARs below 60, including almost 7 per cent of offers to students who scored below 50” (Millburn, 2012). This kind of candidature of teachers implicates that the ones entrusted to educate the future mini-Australians are in fact, not necessarily the brightest, or the most academically skilled persons, resulting in a growing fear of under-educated or poorly educated students – and the snowballing of worsening teacher standards. The Australian government is facilitating a number of ways to combat this phenomenon as part of the recently revealed National Plan for School Improvement.

The idea of performance-based pay as a way to combat this trend and provide incentive for passionate, dedicated and skilled teachers is rife with ideas of commodification as salary based motivation for better quality teaching is a prime example of the way that education as a societal facet is being marketed and commodified into a business.

Marketization refers to the commodification of schooling into the market, by way of schools “importing expertise from marketing and fundraising experts, developing marketing plans, establishing sponsorship/fundraising committees and undertaking advertising programmes”, (Kenway and Bullen, 2001,123), thus entering themselves into the capitalist business market. Therefore rather than viewing marketisation simply as the promotion of individual schools, it can be broadly examined at the marketing of education as a whole. Given the candidature for graduate and undergraduate teachers, the use of financial incentive to inspire a better quality teaching culture by the government is allowing for the commodification of teaching and schooling, across sectors of public and private nature. By previously not individually rewarding the hard-working, passionate teachers the profession needs, “our most experienced teachers are tempted to move to the education bureaucracy or into school principal positions to increase their earnings, or worse to leave teaching all together” (ALP Gillard ‘Fact sheet’, 2012), thus leaving education in Australia in dire circumstances. Therefore initiatives such a performance-based pay where teachers are rewarded for their individual effort, as well as other forms of marketization such as the recent competition launched by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Federal Minister for Education Peter Garrett, searching for ‘Australia’s Favourite Teacher’ (Go Teaching, 2012) are actually evidence of commodification of culture – the government is aiming to create and market a culture of valuing education and teaching. The increasing focus, funding and promotion of education in Australia has been highly publicized but the ideas of education as a culture being marketised in such ways has yet to be thoroughly examined for educational implications on the future of our teachers and schools – will performance based pay alienate teachers in less-advantaged schools who will find it much more challenging to achieve the results the bonus requires, or will this kind of incentive serve to encourage school-leaver to view education more seriously as a prospective profession, no longer being deterred by the poor salaries they can expect for most of their careers post-graduation. And further, will the hunt for ‘Australia’s Best Teacher’ inspire students to aspire to be like their teachers, or will it be viewed as a cheap political stunt to win favour by the politicians in power?

Go Teaching, 2012 ‘Australia’s favourite teachers named’, Go Teaching – Great teaching jobs for great teachers, 8 October. Accessed: 20/10/2012, URL: http://www.goteaching.com.au/australias-favourite-teachers-named/8521/

Gillard, Julia 2012, Reward Payments for Great Teachers: Performance Pay Fact Sheet, Australian Labor Party

Kenway, J. & Bullen, (2001). Consuming children: Education-Entertainment-Advertising. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 5: Designer schools, packaged students.

Milburn, Caroline 2012 “Why our best teachers are worth $150,000”, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May, Accessed: 20/10/12 URL: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/why-our-best-teachers-are-worth-150000-20120518-1yvyg.html#ixzz2AM7ruzRd