It's the delivery, stupid

An education policy that can't be delivered isn't worth the paper it's written on, argues Richard Wilson.

The best unit I ever completed at university was called 'Social Policy Implementation'. The lecturer had been a Deputy Secretary of various Australian Government departments and had received his PhD from the LSE. He had seen every approach to public administration since Whitlam. He knew his stuff. 

His favourite parable to illustrate the importance of implementation in the policy process was the story of the owl and the mouse. The mouse, faced with the constant threat posed by other animals in the forest, asked the owl how he could avoid being eaten. 

The wise old owl, known as the smartest animal in the forest, replied that the best way would be to join him atop one of the branches of the many trees high above the forest floor. 

The mouse saw the wisdom of the owl's thinking, and over the next few days proceeded to try everything he could think of to get to the lofty branch. He clawed, jumped and climbed his way up the tree, but never got very far before falling back to the ground. 

Weary and beaten, the mouse finally asked the owl how he could get up to the branch. The owl replied that he was just the policy person, and didn't concern himself with implementation. 

Moral of the story: it is not enough just to say that every child will get a laptop, or the number of training colleges should be increased, or more science teachers with adequate qualifications should be found. The real value is in actually delivering on those promises. 

Sadly, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard don't seem to realise this. Questioning in this week's Senate Estimates revealed that while the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) had previously expected fifteen Trade Training Centres in Schools to be built by January 2010, only four have been completed (and only one of these is operational). Not a good start when you're trying to roll out 2,650 of them over the forward estimates. 

Similarly, the Government's much vaunted Computers in Schools programme has only delivered about one in seven of the laptops they promised, with the programme due to expire in less than a year and a half. If you can only roll out 150,000 laptops in over two years, how are you going to get 900,000 out in less than one-and-a-half? 

The neglect of implementation considerations go further, with the promise to deliver the computers unaccompanied by any thought of the extra costs it would impose on parents (which are substantial), whether relying on computers in classrooms is desirable (experts say it isn't), or if the benefits outweigh these costs (no analysis was ever conducted). 

Rudd and Gillard clearly have no idea how to deliver on their  'Education Revolution' promises. If they did, surely some of their promises would have been implemented by now? 

Richard Wilson is the Federal President of the Young Liberal Movement of Australia. He holds a BA(Hons) from UWA and an MPubPol from ANU. The Young Liberal Movement will be highlighting more of Kevin Rudd's broken promises in the lead up to the Federal Election.

Comments

[Ben]

1.

When Labor hacks start pontificating about an “education revolution” it is time for parents to hide their wallets. And you raise a good point Richard. Whatever happened to all those “education-friendly” laptops?

[Clinton]

2.

The answer to Education is simple, and its not in section 51 of the Australian Constitution.

That's the point, the best education policy for the Federal Government is no education policy.

The last thing we need is overlord Rudd or whoever is doing the job next deciding what education is going to be funded and what isn't.

There's a few simple steps the Fed's could take tomorrow:

Stop funding universities.

Stop funding public and 'private' schools (which are really public anyway as they are subsidied by the Feds just like public schools).

Distribute the funds saved to the states, or even better to the people, so they can make their own education choices for themselves and their children.

[Stephan Knoll]

3.

Great article Richard and something I think all politicians should spend some more time doing. It wouldn't be as glamerous but it may lead to greater accountability.

[Steven]

4.

Clinton, talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater! The number one university in the country - and the alma mater of Richard Wilson - is a publicly funded university. It (and many other universities)attracts foreign students from far and wide who contribute substantially to our economy. Richard's point is not about funding, it's about broken promises and inept service delivery. To suggest that "the best Federal Government education policy is to have no education policy" is nonsensical.

[LH]

5.

Has anyone actually looked at what is being taught in our schools?
Well I found out about the schools teaching "Climate Change", just have a look at the rubbish that they are teaching in this area.
I thought school was suppose to be about "facts", these are far from being facts, and teachers should not be allowed to teach this crap.

http://www.teachingclimatechange.com.au/

[Richard Wilson]

6.

Thanks all for your comments. While the article was principally related to service delivery, I am also interested in education policy debates, so here are some briefly considered thoughts.

I was a policy officer in the Department of Education, Science and Training under the Howard government. A lot of the things being debated now were still around when I worked there (vouchers, principal autonomy, performance based pay, national curriculum, supply side factors with maths teachers etc).

My position on these issues is that as much as possible, you devolve decision making to those at the coal face. Retaining decisionmaking power in bureaucracies is inefficient and doesn't lead to good outcomes. Principals need to make decisions over their teaching staff, and parents need to make decisions for their kids.

However, you need a small (ie much, much smaller than present) set of administrators providing advice to government about policy. To go without this risks people who genuinely need more assistance (kids with special needs, for instance) falling through the cracks, and ensuring that programmes are implemented properly (ie vouchers are not rorted or doubled up).

This belief has led, and will continue to lead, to my public eviceration by libertarians for lack of purity, but I think it makes sense.

+++++++++++++++
Lastly, as a parochial Western Australian, I should have of course signed off my article as Richard Wilson, FEDERAL (not National) President of the YLM. Many thanks to Mr Tim Andrews for correcting this mistake (brought about by writing at 1am).

[Michael]

7.

Richard, any libertarian criticism of your position in the comment above is likely to be based on concerns that any policies implemented must actually work (go far enough as to make a difference) as well as be amenable to the public.

Your position as a policy officer would in a more perfect system be redundant, with policy direction being done by local school boards, including boards for disabled schools, athletic schools, other special schools, etc.

The amount of central bureaucrats to administer a localised, vouchers-based education system would be very few, and they would certainly not need to exist at a federal level. And they would have near-zero control over policy, with whatever policy co-ordination being done by general meetings of all boards, to ensure the upkeep of standards.

The more central control given to a system the more damage that can be done by a pernicious minority happy to indoctrinate schoolchildren as they wish, shielded from parents and the public by their fixed positions in government. Like you I am young, and I have no children yet, but I want to know that when I do I can walk into a local school board meeting and have my concerns heard and acted upon. This isn't possible in a centralised bureaucracy.

[Clinton Mead]

8.

Steven: Education would be more effectively funded if it was actually funded by the public, not by the Federal Government.

And if these publicly funded Universities are so profitable and bring so much wealth to our economy under a government funded system, then they'd easily get investment under a state/local/private system anyway.

I'm not sure why the Liberal party has to take Whitlam's position that massive amounts of Federal funding has to go to Universities. States should run this just like they do schools. If anything, states have more incentive to fund than the Feds, because it affects their people and their communities.

Surprisingly, there are some problems which don't have to be solved by asking Rudd for money.

Richard:

I totally agree with you. Like all government, education should be as local and as close to the people as possible

What I don't see is why many of these administrators should be Federal.

Being critical of the Federal education bureaucracy doesn't mean in can't exist, it just should be ten million dollars a year instead of ten billion. Ten million is plenty for a few advisors, and you'd cut the Federal education budget by 99.9%, and instead direct it to states, local government and the people.

If the states agree to have a unified education system, then there could be some Federal regulators. But if one state wants to do things differently, I don't think the Feds should come in waving around the purse telling them how to do things.

I didn't have a particular criticism of your article, it just seems like this is a continuation of the "vote for us, because we do socialism more efficiently than the other guys".

It would be nice if the Liberals instead said "we'll cut government spending to 20% of GDP" for example. Do Liberals really believe that the Government should control a third of our economy? Arguably, that's more than Communist China.

Government expenditure at 20% of GDP isn't asking for something extremely libertarian, its just asking for the government to take only 71 days a year from us, not 120. I don't think that's at all unreasonable, and I'd be surprised many Liberal members would object to the government controlling only 20% of the economy.

If you think cutting Government expenditure to 20% of GDP is unreasonable, let me know, but otherwise have a chat to your party and I look forward to seeing it as Liberal policy for the next election!