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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) submits the attached document as its response to the consultation being undertaken by the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) National Goals Task Force regarding of the review of the national goals and the establishment of targets associated with the goals.

The NCEC has consulted with all State and Territory Catholic Education Commissions. As a consequence of this consultation and further discussion by the NCEC, the NCEC:

• supports the broad framework regarding of the national goals draft revision and recommends that the task force further refine this framework in the light of this response and other responses received;
• has strong reservations about the development of targets. Our consultation found all Commissions have reservations about the development of targets and some Commissions have very serious reservations.

This response details the NCEC position and we strongly recommend further consultation in the months ahead on any further developed documentation before final submission to the Ministerial Council.

The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) supports the proposition that the 1989 Common and Agreed National Goals of Schooling in Australia should be reviewed, and is pleased to have the opportunity to be involved in the review process. Among Australian Catholic educators there is strong general support for the development of a statement of visionary national goals. The NCEC applauds the socio-cultural aspirations and values which are attributed a heightened status in the revised goals: active citizenship, cultural richness and diversity, reconciliation with Indigenous Australians and the promotion of social responsibility in matters of morality, ethics and social justice.

Among Australian Catholic educators there is an acknowledgment of the work of recent years to attempt to identify national targets, and some interest in developing targets related to the national goals by schools and school systems. However, there is not general support for the development of specific targets at the national level. Australian Catholic educators are committed to accounting for the educational standards of their schools, and for the use of government funds in supporting their educational endeavours. In this context, however, the NCEC believes that the development of specific targets should properly occur at system and/or school level.

In general terms, there are a number of positive comments which could be made about the new draft version of Australia’s Common and Agreed Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century :

• the goals reflect the desirable outcomes of schooling.
• there is recognition that education has many varied forms and is not just orientated towards university destinations. Vocational education, training and employment are seen as legitimate post-secondary destinations for students.
• the particular references to "spiritual, moral and aesthetic development", "values" and "socially just" schooling sit very comfortably with the aims of Catholic education.
• the strong and explicit reference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures is a positive step forward.
• references to citizenship and participation in Australian society are worthy additions.
• a recognition and reinforcement of the cultural diversity of Australian society is particularly significant.
• the sense of partnership conveyed in sections of the document is a reflection of the efforts of all school systems to deliver worthwhile educational outcomes for students.

However, as the goals are reviewed care needs to be taken to develop a set of goals which fully include:

• the social purposes of schools;
• the cognitive purposes of schools.

There is a concern among Catholic educators that it is very difficult to measure all the important aspects of schooling. Schooling is much more complex than a set of simple statements. It is important to acknowledge that educational outcomes are set as much by the learner as by the teacher, and that learning is lifelong, and the process of learning is part-mystery. The intricate relationship between teacher and learner is certainly not a trainer/trained relationship, nor a provider/client one. It is a far more complex relationship, especially as one approaches the luminous/translucent areas of knowledge and understanding.

Given the significance of the task being undertaken, NCEC believes that careful consideration needs to be given to the process of development of any new statement of national goals.

The NCEC believes that the developmental process must continue to be transparent and consultative. To this end the NCEC recommends that the National Goals Taskforce consider separating the development of new national goals from any proposed development of national targets. Further, in terms of a timeline, it is recommended that the taskforce produce :

a) a report of the feedback provided in response to the May Discussion Paper.

In the context of the proposed second discussion paper no final decision on a set of "Agreed National Goals and Targets for Schooling" should be taken before April 1999, so as to allow further proper analysis of any recommendations which may finally be provided to MCEETYA for endorsement.

Is ‘preamble’ the appropriate term for this section of the document?

A clear statement of national vision for schooling is needed. There is also a strong belief that for Catholic educators the central goal of education is the education of the whole person. NCEC believes that this statement should be in the first paragraph in the preamble. The current introductory paragraph is overly instrumentalist in tone. This paragraph should be recast to emphasise the importance of effective schooling in working towards the full development and complete self realisation of each student.

Further, a clear statement in support of multiculturalism is needed. In paragraph one, a more appropriate wording could be ‘the opportunities that globalisation and multiculturalism present to schooling’.

Since the work of teachers is essential to the achievement of the goals, this should be strongly affirmed in the preamble. (NCEC refers the taskforce to the Senate report, A Class Act.)

The NCEC believes that an explicit reference to "inclusivity" would enhance the document. There is an implication that educational outcomes need to be a achievable by all students. Further examples of the non-inclusive tone of the document are contained in paragraph six ("every student"), paragraph seven ("....curriculum, students should have : attained high standards....") and top of page five ("every child leaving primary school..."). It is universally acknowledged that there will be some students for which these ideals will not be achievable.

NCEC asks where are students with special needs in the document? They are part of the nation’s children. They may not score highly on ‘benchmarks’, so, for the Australian community, they are either a handicap to our society, or heighten our awareness for the need for compassion, equity and inclusivity. The document needs to make a much stronger statement about the innate dignity and entitlements of these young people.

The NCEC also advocates the inclusion of "recreational pursuits" as a legitimate outcome of the schooling process. This links with the notion of "lifelong learning" expressed in the document.

Schooling, as part of a lifelong process of learning, cannot "fully" develop people.

1. have skills in analysis and problems solving and the ability to become confident and technologically competent members of 21^st century society.
   
   The NCEC strongly advocates the inclusion of ‘creativity’.
2. have qualities of self-confidence, optimism, high self-esteem, and a commitment to personal excellence as a basis for their potential life roles as family, community and workforce members.
   
   This goal has an unnecessarily strong focus on ‘self’. It is also a goal which is the responsibility of the entire community, and not just schooling alone.
3. be active and informed citizens with the ability to exercise judgement and responsibility in matters of morality, ethics and social justice; and the capacity to make sense of their world, to think about how things got to be the way they are, to make rational and informed decisions about their own lives and to collaborate with others.
   
   This is the most important goal, and therefore should be listed first.
4. have a foundation for, and positive attitudes towards, vocational education and training, further education, employment and life-long learning.
   
   In this goal, more than just a ‘foundation’ is needed; an ‘understanding’ may be better. It also needs the addition of the ability to make sound decisions.

1. attained high standards of knowledge, skills and understanding through a comprehensive and balanced curriculum encompassing the agreed eight key learning areas:
   • the arts;
   • English;
   • health and physical education;
   • languages other than English;
   • mathematics;
   • science;
   • studies of society and environment
   • technology
   
   and the interrelationships between them.

This section on the school curriculum needs to explicitly acknowledge the legitimate rights of state Statutory Boards and school authorities to determine specific curriculum priorities, albeit within agreed broad national goals.

This goal reflects the confusion over terminology which is apparent in the draft document. It contains both a goal and a target. It is also a very narrow understanding of literacy, and does not embrace multi literacy or critical literacy. It is backward looking, rather than future orientated. Literacy in Catholic schools is certainly wider than just ‘English’ literacy.

It is heartening to see that social justice is to remain a central theme in the revised goals and that schooling ‘should ensure that outcomes for educationally disadvantaged students improve and match more closely those of other students’. How well school systems throughout Australia have managed to ensure a strong focus on equity in the context of the rapid re-orientation of educational provision is yet to be assessed. However, the growing number of children living in poverty does not bode well for equitable schooling outcomes in the future.

While NCEC believes that it is vitally important for social justice goals to be articulated, however, there ia a concern that this suggested draft represents a very narrow set of social justice goals.

‘In addition’ is not necessary.

1. outcomes for educationally disadvantaged students improve and match more closely those of other students.
   
   The resource implications of this goal need to be teased out: it demands more than just ‘measure and match’. Across all areas, the identification of goals and setting of targets will require appropriate resource allocation.
2. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have equitable access, participation and outcomes.
3. all students have understanding of and respect for Aboriginal cultures and Torres Strait Islander cultures to achieve reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

NCEC suggests that this be altered to: ‘All students have understanding of and respect for Indigenous cultures, past and present to achieve reconciliation....’

1. all students have the knowledge, cultural understandings and skills which respect individuals’ freedom to celebrate languages and cultures within a socially cohesive framework of shared values.

This is a complex and challenging statement. It affirms the respect for the individual’s freedom to celebrate his/her language and culture, and then refers to shared values. The question is ‘whose values?’ This will require considerable elaboration.

NCEC believes that more emphasis on Equity issues, and a consideration of Gender issues, is needed.

There is a need to include reference to the respect and care of creation and all living things.

Also NCEC believes that greater emphasis needs to be placed on valuing the work of teachers. There is also a need to strengthen the professional standing of teachers. Recent years have seen a prolonged period of management restructuring in Australian education systems and this has had a destabilising effect and had helped demoralise classroom teachers and devalue their role in the schooling process. National goals aimed at improving schooling outcomes must have built into them goals to strengthen the professional standing of classroom teachers. It is pleasing to see that the statement includes reference to schools systems and the Commonwealth working together to ‘strengthen the status and quality of the teaching profession’.

The school as a social community is a concept which is missing from the draft statement. The day to day lives of students, and the importance of their relationships with each other and their teachers is important and should be recognised. The social ecology of schooling cannot be ignored or dismissed.

While the development of targets has been of interest to MCEETYA and other groups, the idea of National Targets for Australian schools is a relatively novel concept which needs to be progressed with great care and careful deliberation. National targets risk promoting a reductionist and instrumentalist approach to schooling, where only that which is measurable is valued.

However, the NCEC sees value in the setting of targets provided the setting of targets remains the province of each school and its particular school authority. As a general principle of target development the more specific the target the closer the agency which sets that target should be to the school.

In this context any role for highly specific National Targets becomes problematic.

If, however, broad National Targets are to be developed the NCEC would want an approach to target setting which acknowledges that :

• the spiritual, moral and ethical purposes of schooling;
• the social purposes of schooling;

• he affective aspects of learning.

While the NCEC has expressed serious concerns regarding the development of National Targets attached to the Common and Agreed Goals of Schooling, that is not to say that it is unreasonable for Governments to have some expectations of the schooling sector. The goals themselves set the direction and the agenda for the schooling sectors to work within. Each sector should determine and report upon systematically and comprehensively the manner in which the goals are addressed, especially from the realities of the teaching and learning processes in classrooms. It is very easy for governments to assume simple targets, and simple measurement of highly complex educational issues.

The question of how any national targets will be linked to Commonwealth Resource Agreements is a vital one which remains unanswered, and which needs to be addressed.

There is also a need to establish agreements nationally on terminology. At present, there appears to be considerable confusion, and there is a tendency to use words like ‘standards’, ‘benchmarks’, ‘targets’, ‘goals’ and ‘key performance indicators’ interchangeably. The related terms ‘inputs’, ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ also require clarification. In this context, the example of the National Literacy Goal (3.2) is appropriate. Students are expected to have "attained the skills of numeracy and English literacy; attained the skills of numeracy and English literacy; in particular, every child leaving primary school should be numerate, able to read, write spell and communicate at an appropriate level". This statement contains both a goal and also a more precise target: "in particular, every child leaving primary school should be numerate, able to read, write spell and communicate at an appropriate level."

Further, the language of the draft document itself is generally too self-centred and not altruistic.

In a draft document such as this, it is important to identify the prevailing metaphors used to describe both learners in the educational process, and the educational process itself. Often these metaphors are not overt. They are subtle, but they are a powerful influence on the tasks of curriculum, associated resource development and the conduct of teaching.

One metaphor in particular that is used in the draft document is the language of the battlefield. This metaphor is reflected in much contemporary educational jargon through terms such as "targets", "strategies", "objectives", "aiming" at certain groups. It is interesting to note how such language creeps subtlety into the educational debate and gradually becomes acceptable. It then creates a new metaphor, a new understanding of what the task is, whether that has been thought through fully or not. In clarifying the meanings of the terms being used, there is a need for reflection on such developments so that the impoverished language of the battlefield, or of the market and economists does not reduce education further.

The term benchmark has been borrowed from industry and used increasingly in education. Australian education needs to be wary that the term taken from the military, target, is not accepted unwittingly into the educational lexicon. To do so ultimately imposes negatively upon understandings of the dynamic of learning itself, let alone the dynamic of the teaching process.

Therefore, the NCEC requests that the taskforce give serious consideration and reflection to the use of terminology, and to develop metaphors which more appropriately reflect the complexity and mystery of the teaching and learning process. Not to do so reflects a nation that has an impoverished view of its people and their beliefs, their individuality and their communal life, their capacities, their aspirations and the many ways that they learn, and an undervalued view of education itself and of teaching and learning.

In conclusion, the revamped national goals do present a better, more holistic view of the schooling process. However, there needs to be word of caution sounded about the undue emphasis placed on achievement of targets and the lack of recognition to education being inclusive of all students. It may well be that performance indicators or targets are useful in providing a broad indication of where a school or a school system appears to be performing well or poorly, rather than a summation of a school’s, system’s, or program’s, achievements or failings.

The NCEC :

Finally, the NCEC is concerned that any overly specific National Targets will necessitate the development of extensive data collection protocols if State wide reporting against the Targets is to be achieved. The NCEC is not persuaded that the cost of establishing such data collections could be justified. Also, the NCEC would be very concerned by any attempt to utilise National Goals and Targets in funding and accountability processes. Any such use could only arise from specific and direct negotiations on, and agreement to, such use.

The NCEC both thanks and congratulates the taskforce for its work to date, and looks forward to continuing to participate in :

• the review of the National Goals for Australian Schools;

• discussion of options for the possible development of broad National Targets for Australian Schools.