October-November 2017

Brisbane Grammar School is a veritable haven for high achieving young men in the state of Queensland. Founded in 1868 and opening its doors a year later, it has an almost 150-year history of housing and educating generations of Australia’s future leaders and visionaries.

Underpinned by values of endeavour, learning, respect, leadership and community, the Brisbane Grammar School purpose is to educate boys by nurturing their intellectual, physical, and emotional wellbeing to become thoughtful, confident men of character who contribute to their communities. Through a longstanding commitment to providing “a broad liberal education”, the school seeks to ensure students are best prepared for life beyond the school gates.

Almost from its opening, Brisbane Grammar School has offered boarding to its students. With 1700 students and 100 boarders, the school combines development and educational innovation with a palpable sense of history and traditions. Its beautiful campus is a testament to this; striking a balance of historical structures with state-of the-art educational and sporting facilities.

2018 will be a momentous year for the school – it celebrates its 150-year anniversary. As a part of our 2017 ’Best Managed Schools’ series, we spoke with David Carroll and Berian Williams-Jones, Deputy Headmaster Students and Director of Boarding respectively. They helped us understand a little bit about what has made this institution so resilient, and also shed some light on the school’s enduring uniqueness and plans for the future.

All-round excellence

“We have a terminology that we’ve embedded into our psyche. We are trying to encourage our boys to become all-rounders,” explains Carroll.

“What an all-rounder looks like for us is someone that works hard, but also participates in our sporting, cultural, and public purpose programs.”

In the boarding house it’s in the outstanding programs that the school prides itself on in terms of nurturing bright minds. Williams-Jones, in his role as Director of Boarding, focuses specifically on the school’s boarders as he explains the five strands of the school’s ‘enrichment’ programs.

Educational enrichment

Boarders are given specialist teaching over the course of the year, which in essence means that every boarder gets an extra week of teaching compared to that of their day boy cohort peer group.

“It offers further support for boarders in terms of supervision, routines, study habits and one-to-one assistance from in-house tutors,” adds Williams-Jones.

Activities Enrichment

 The activities enrichment program for boarders runs seven days a week. Students have quite a diverse pick of activities that go well beyond the classroom, including beach sports, bushwalking, paintballing, sporting competitions and on rare occasions, you may well see some young crooners singing their hearts out at a Saturday-night in-house X Factor competition.

The school recognises that its students’ talents will be of a diverse nature and believes in the importance of providing them with a specialised and assorted activities program to draw out these varying talents.

Life skills

The life skills program gives boarders the skills they need to meet the challenges of everyday modern life. They’re graced with the teachings of first aid, cookery and basic household chores, like ironing and lawn mowing.

Public Purpose

The school’s Public Purpose Program provides boys with a real sense of purpose and fulfilment. Boarders and day pupils help those that are homeless or in transition. At the same time, boys understand the fortunate position they are in to be able to make that difference.

Leadership

The final strand of the school’s enrichment initiative is its leadership program. Across the school, leadership is crucial, demonstrated in the prefect structure of its class seniors. While in the boarding house, there are seven boys with similar status to the school prefects.

“We also have leaders within each of our 10 house families, all of whom set the all-important tone for the junior boarders,” Williams-Jones continues.

“We like to try to look for opportunities for each boy to be in charge. We feel it essential that each boy gains a meaningful understanding of what it is to be a leader.”

Connections and progress

While certainly a leading school in Queensland and Australia, it is clear that there is little egotism in its attitude. Carroll explains to us the school’s refreshing outlook, an outlook which inevitably spurs it on to continuing excellence:

“We are proud of what our students achieve at school and in their lives after graduation, but we are always working to do things better.”

Carroll clarifies that the school achieves this through a persistently collaborative atmosphere. By motivating its staff through professional development, the school always sees the positive trickledown effects befall its students.

The other side to this collaborative culture is that the school works closely with parents and students. Carroll is keen to emphasise that through such close relationships, the school can better itself in enriching its students’ education and lives: “A tripartite relationship that has the student at its focus, is at the core of who we are as a school.”

The school recognises the value people place on word of mouth, especially in boarding, with the satisfaction of its current parents playing an important role in continued growth.

Williams-Jones is quick to explain: “I believe that what sells boarding is satisfied students and parents. Putting our current parents at the heart of our development and ensuring top quality experiences, is why we continue to see families eager to join Brisbane Grammar School, and more specifically the school’s boarding community.”

In terms of physical developments, the constantly-evolving school is moving ahead with the exciting state-of-the-art STEAM – science, technology, engineering, art and maths – precinct. This will complement The Lilley Centre, completed in 2010, which was driven by a vision to create powerful new 21st century learning experiences for students.

The blessings of boarding

The nature of boarding has changed considerably over the past 30 years. While many boys continue to board for geographic reasons, others actually live near the school. In fact, the school’s closest boarder lives 250m away.

“We’re seeing the trend of students who live close by and could be day students, but instead attend the school as boarders to gain the many additional benefits. Now it’s a decision and an option parents are taking because of the programs that we offer,” affirmed Williams-Jones.

Certainly a significant shift in recent years has been the school’s decision to open its doors to international students. There are around half a dozen international students currently boarding alongside the more traditional country students. The school also offers temporary boarding places for families who may have to travel for their work for example, and so give their sons a home through the Brisbane Grammar School boarding facilities. In all, the school has rolled with the natural progression its boarding has taken, an attitude which has given life to the varied and diversified nature of its boarding house.

In the same breath, the school has a ‘closing-the-gap’ committee focused on enhancing reconciliation. It has three boarders who earned indigenous scholarships through the school’s Cape York Leadership Program, while another three indigenous boys are in the house through other bursary style programs.

A setting that inspires

What truly stood out when speaking to the pair, was the supportive, nurturing environment the school places around its students. The school takes its five values of learning, endeavour, respect, community and leadership, and translates them into expectations.

“House rules aren’t the way we want to run the boarding house; we think expectations bring a better result,” said Williams-Jones.

“Just this term we introduced a positive behaviour framework to the boys, and it will be a means by which we can recognise, acknowledge and reward behaviour which we think contributes positively to towards the development of the community.”

As our conversation comes to a close, it’s clear that it is in the values of the school, and passion the staff have for it that will bring out the best in its students. This is characterised beautifully in Carroll’s parting words to us:

“Student wellbeing is a key part of every Brisbane Grammar School boy’s journey. Supporting our students is really, really important here.”

Since 1919, Calrossy Anglican School has been educating young ladies of secondary school age in the warm planes of rural Australia. However, its history is not a singular one. It has strands to it and tells a tale of growth and integration. From its humble beginning as the ‘Tamworth Church of England Girls’ School’, the institution grew strong and connected, and in 2006 amalgamated with subsequent schools that had developed within the community of Tamworth. It welcomed into its fold a primary school and a boys’ secondary school, facilitating students of all genders and ages to prosper in education and life. Calrossy now offers a unique “diamond school” model of education, with a co-educational primary, single sex Secondary Girls and Boys in Year 7 to 10, before the students combine together in classes in Years 11 and 12. It allows Calrossy to still offer a one-stop shop for parents, that can target its teaching to best suit each gender, before they come back together as more mature students for the reality of a co-educational world beyond school. Calrossy calls it the “diamond school advantage.”

It is a model that is working. The number of boarders has grown from around 40 to 50 pupils in the days Principal David Smith was a young man in Tamworth, to the present day range of 230 young girls and boys.  Boarders from Year 7-12 are spread out over four campuses, and make up almost a third of the schools’ secondary students. Indeed, certain years even have a waiting list for boarding, no doubt spurred by not only the school’s excellent academics, but the ‘unique experience’ it prides itself on providing to its young scholars.

Inivation in the classroom. Left: Jack Riley 7, Dane Cuddihy 6, Shanzay Zubair 6. Photo: Gareth Gardner 28-07-2016

Calrossy unquestionably has a major role to play in helping to raise this cohort of rural boarders. After all, these kids grow up within its walls from Monday through to Friday, if not all seven days of the week during the most impressionable era of their lives. So then, what is this ‘unique experience it provides’? And, what steps does it take to accommodate these kids the best it can? What of the culture and support it provides to help assure their future?

We spoke to Mr Smith alongside the school’s Head of Boarding, Courtney Coe, to gain some understanding and insight into the operations and values of this religious regional school. We explored how the school connects its boarders with a keen sense of self, and instils in them its Christian values, so that they may flourish academically and personally to prepare for the roads ahead. The diverse perspectives of the Principal, who joined as recently as a few months ago, and Mrs Coe who has a longstanding history with the school, has paved the way for a fresh outlook as well as a learned interpretation of the aspirational institution.

Brains on sticks

“Kids are more than brains on sticks,” Mr Smith exclaims. And while this statement is teeming with hints of the absurd, it also goes straight to the core of what stands out the most in the assertions of Calrossy’s new Principal and its Head of Boarding.

Whilst the school’s academics are by far the best in its part of the state, for both boarding and day students, there is something more it implants in them.

“We want them to be citizens of the world, compassionate, caring,” says Mr Smith.

Mrs Coe avows one of the school’s focuses being to look at the unique need of each child:

“Be it from getting them on programs for activities they love, to understanding and accommodating their individual learning needs. We acknowledge all individuals as just that, individuals.”

With performance related stress and pressures facing all students, the school is very careful of measuring a child’s worth, solely by how well they do at school. Instead, as well as their raising academics, it helps its kids to define their special passions, strengthen their interpersonal connections and grow their independence.

The ties that bind

The school’s approach is four fold in terms of interlocking a strong community culture, Christian values and an understanding environment. It strengthens the bonds with not only its students, but also with their families and the Calrossy staff appointed to watch out for them. This is in addition to strengthening its presence within the community.

Students

“One of the things I’m focusing on in my time as Principal is to listen, and hear and learn,” says Mr Smith, and indeed, he asserts great importance on getting to know the students and understanding things from their perspective before making any ensuing changes. Such a remarkable and rather adaptable attitude is a stark contrast to the stereotypical rigidity that comes with the old fashioned image of boarding schools.

Furthermore, unlike many boarding schools, Calrossy maintains a system where no child stays in the same room each term. A strong move to entrench advanced social skills in students, and indeed a great way to help them to enjoy a varied social circle, much outside of the cliquey mentality – the school’s value of inclusivity coming strongly into play.

Academically, and for Year 12 boarders in particular, individual rooms are provided for studying, further supporting the intellectual advancement many of them so feverishly seek.

The bonds Calrossy holds with the students, the bonds so closely linked to the success of the boarding programme, include staff whose main and sole focus is the boarders and their wellbeing. These staff nurture that crucial close and understanding relationship with boarders to ensure their welfare and that their needs are met. The essence of family is undeniably strong and the staff bask in the mealtimes that resemble a family dinnertime of sorts. This familial feeling comes to life in the light chatter of spirited children, and the moments taken to show appreciation for all that they have. Even the rooms are less dorm-like, and are moreso spaces for the young residents to make their own.

Community

As for the community at large, the school absolutely encourages and indeed enables its kids to integrate into the surrounding town.

“We don’t have a school-centric sort of view,” explains Mr Smith, and as such, many kids take part in community sport. In addition, the school enables kids to indulge in their particular interests through town classes (archery anyone?) and many of the older students even have external part-time jobs. In a rural area like Tamworth, the spirit of networking and connecting with the community is already strong, which is nothing short of providence for Calrossy, a school which values inclusiveness at all costs.

The school’s wellbeing program, that Mrs Coe works on with the Leader of Wellbeing for boarders, combines the child’s individuality with the prospect of what the child can offer to the wider community. The program looks at the needs of each age group and gender, and provides them with a specific value for them to focus on each term. This includes values like resilience or service, and aids in bolstering the students’ ethics and ideals. Some examples include kids knocking on doors for Red Cross, raising the money to sponsor children in Uganda, and more locally, being involved in fundraising for a local helicopter organisation, a service that has irrefutably been a great asset to the community in the wake of natural disasters and bushfires.

Within the smaller ecosystem of the school’s community, the boarders are part of mentoring programs to younger students, they also partake in a buddy system and even give some face time through serving breakfast to the youngsters.

Being part of a rural community, the school even has its own cattle club and equestrian program involving the grooming and training of animals. Many of its students do after all have a highly rural background and potentially, a rural future. This way, the school can ensure they train them with the experience they need. “Honestly though, this is enjoyable for most of our kids. Our future lawyers and doctors love these programs just as much, and from this they learn the art of caring and patience,” says Mr Smith.

Families

Alongside the relationships with the pupils and the community, the school strives to keep families involved as much as possible. “We know there’s nothing like real family and so we try to keep these links strong,” Mr Smith maintains. Each term, the school has a leave weekend where the kids can go home. Also, unusually but inspiringly, the school sometimes makes every effort to attend events in some of its students’ hometown, as a lot of the time, parents cannot afford the time to attend events at the school itself.

In boarding they maintain contact with all families on a regular basis, understanding the massive commitment these families make in leaving their children in the hands of Calrossy. All boarding staff are hugely accessible, and are available to contact throughout day. This no doubt gives that essential peace of mind to concerned parents.

“That’s been a nice part of the boarding situation here – the time we have for people,” Mrs Coe tells us.

Staff

Calrossy employs 240 staff, where half are teachers and half are in support and operations roles. A good number of these support and operations staff are involved with boarding, while many of the teachers kindly volunteer their own time to provide afterschool tutoring to many of the students. Calrossy’s staff are likewise part of the tight-knit Calrossy family, where their wellbeing is as important as the wellbeing of the students they watch over.

The school also makes sure its staff are given extensive training to broaden their personal and professional development to ensure competency and growth. One example? Calrossy is a part of the Australian Boarding Schools Association and requires its staff to complete the association’s “Duty Of Care” certificate.

For what lies ahead

As a Christian school, Calrossy is keenly aware of the need to maintain its relevance in an increasingly secular western world. Technology is one of the things at the forefront of maintaining this relevance. Calrossy students have been virtually connecting with the local Mayor and even with museums in Europe to gain an interactive and wider worldview.

“We’re changing practice away from the norm of the teacher at the front sprouting information to the uninterested. We’re helping children to access a whole, exiting world of information,” states Mr Smith.

But there’s also the challenges that come through dealing with real people and navigating real interactions. As such, the school endeavors that its boys and girls know how to interact maturely, to make levelheaded decisions, and to act with integrity and caring.

“These children need to be wise as well as smart,” opines Mr Smith.  “Our goal is to have happy, resilient, rounded adults at the end of it all. Thoughtful caring people, who are responsible towards the world at large, and towards each other.”

Calrossy’s staff realise that the world they grew up in is disappearing rapidly. Research says that the children of today are going to have three or four different careers. This is in addition to the national if not global crisis of depression amongst younger people. With these boys and girls facing the usual life challenges, as well as the challenges of an incessantly changing future, Calrossy upholds the weight of equipping pupils for the outside world, and certainly, to become active members of it.

“Together with academic excellence, the key point of difference is the school’s personable and caring nature. As a Christian school, this is something we hold dear,” says the Principal. “That personal care and connection is deeply important. Our affordability and the flexibility of our boarding are simple added benefits.”

And as for how Mr Smith expects the school to keep growing and attracting talent, which for a rural school, it has already done remarkably well:

“We try to build awareness through regional magazines, but we’re not going to splash hundreds of thousands on TV ads etc. It is satisfied parents who are our most effective marketing.”

It is clear to see that Calrossy provides its students with ‘roots’ if you like, a framework that’s incredibly supportive and uplifting. It gives its student the tools to be happy and fulfilled. Everything the school does is not for its own advantage, not for making waves on the league tables (which it does anyway), but for the advantage of the students themselves, to give them the smarts and the strength for the life that is unfolding for them.

“We’re really passionate, and that’s one of the reason why our students are passionate too,” states Mr Smith.

And how does he feel after coming back to Tamworth following two decades spent in Sydney? He informs us hilariously:

“We had to buy a new ram recently. This is a bit out of my comfort zone, but that’s a part of the fantastic uniqueness of our situation here. Working in a great school, in the country, is a huge privilege!”

History and facts about school

Rooted in Australia’s capital city, Canberra Grammar School (CGS) was established in 1928 after existing as various different schools since way back in 1902. Boarding was available at the independent Anglican school since the 1930s, although while girls were accepted into the school in 1975s, boarding is currently only available for boys, but there are plans to extend this offering to girls.

CGS has always been a proud boarding school, acknowledging the responsibility and commitment it takes to nurture students who are entrusted to its care. With a vibrant community of students from Canberra, New South Wales an overseas, boarding is central to the CGS community. The school currently offers boarding care to around 90 students, and we spoke with Gareth Downey, Head of Boarding, about boarding at the school, where it’s heading, and his time there.

A life of variety

Even in the three years he’d been there, Downey has seen the variety of boarders change as folk from different part of the country, and indeed, different parts of the world make their way to CGS. This has contributed hugely to the diverse, nurturing environment the school has cultivated. It has boarders from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, rural and coastal Australia and many more. Some students only live within one to two hours’ drive from Canberra, but are just that little bit further out to commute every day, and so take advantage of the CGS boarding facilities.

“We’ve also noticed a growth in the last three years of student coming in from Sydney. At the end of last year we peaked, we had 10 students from Sydney,” Downey tells us. This is particularly interesting because these students are leaving a large city, with a large number of highly regarded and prestigious schools, in favour of CGS.

“I think a lot of that is about the fact that we’re not in Sydney, if that makes sense, trying to remove students from that sort of environment,” he adds.

Similarly, the school’s boarding has attracted students from the southern isles, students who have traditionally gone north to Sydney for school. The school is even home to military kids from within Canberra, but whose family may be posted far away.

“Many go on postings in three year cycles, and they want their children to stay in Canberra, and finish their education at a quality school.”

To take that diversity a step further, Downey did confirm that the school becoming fully coeducational was a big strategic plan for the school.

“Last year, the school extended the range of year groups that girls could join in the junior school, and this year [2017] we’ve had girls joining us in year seven and year 11, so we’ve begun the transition into coeducation. We don’t have the boarding facilities yet and we’re still in the planning stages, but we intend to have girls boarding as well.”

Going viral

Boarding is currently at its full capacity, and Downey attributes interest in the School’s boarding facilities to a number of factors; “The school, a number of years ago did not have the same strength when it came to boarding numbers. In the last three to four years we’ve really increased that, now we have a waiting list for boarding which is a terrific position to be in.”

So where does this assortment of interest come from? The school’s inroads have come from not only its strategic marketing, but also the word of mouth that happens when students and their parents who feel they’ve been well looked after, start to spread the word. It’s word of mouth that Downey has seen to be the most powerful marketing force for Canberra Grammar School:

“When a parent is considering sending their child to boarding school, it’s a pretty major decision. The school they choose and the care and attention that’s given at the school. It’s a big deal to send your child away like that, and often, for many, thousands of kilometres away.”

For these families, to put their kids into someone else’s care, and then those people to make decisions the parents usually make, Downey has found that word of mouth from trusted family/friends/acquaintances, has definitely been the strongest marketing driver.

Patterns emerge where a boarder comes from an area new to Canberra Grammar. Downey explains that the school did a little bit of analysis on where its boarders come from.

“For example, if we had never had any boarding students enrolled from a particular town in rural New South Wales, and a student from that town enrolled, we saw a sudden spike in enrolments from that same town. From there, we get one student, then all of a sudden we get three, four or five. It’s all word of mouth, and parents sharing their positive stories with their friends and family.” For Downey, this kind of success comes not solely from word of mouth though. It’s the strategic stages it takes from converting this interest into actual pupils that want to attend. He works with marketing to produce promotions, goes through the usual meet and greets on open days, sporting expos and national and international boarding expos.

“I guess that meeting them and talking to them and showing them around is the best form of marketing,” says Downey, adding “It’s the highest conversion rate, whereas when you’re using above the line marketing strategies, like ads, it’s very difficult to know how successful it is.”

The school had a few success stories from Hong Kong, then all of a sudden it had students trickling in from there.

“You get this sort of an almost viral thing happening where you can see ground zero, this middle area where we’ve been successful, and then it spreads from there.”

Its success is in the numbers. Boarding is full, and it has waiting lists for year groups that haven’t even yet started at the school. Being in this kind of strong position opens the school up to financial and academic planning.

Genuine support

Another major focus for CGS Boarding, is developing cross-generational relationships between the students. Specifically, having older students leading, mentoring and guiding the younger ones. Not just in an academic sense, but in their conduct and their behaviour, connecting them through sports training, and other similar program schemes.

Downey explained: “We’re trying to get that feeling that the older students aren’t in charge because of some ancient kind of hierarchy, but that they’re there to lead by example.”

And for the staff it’s the same. The school tries to make sure that everything they do is from that position of caring for students, and not just for the sake of keeping them in check. Trying to make the boarding environment a positive one is one of the hardest things for all boarding institutions. This is a place where students spend more time with staff than at home.

“Thirty-seven to thirty-eight weeks a year, they’re a boarder, fourteen to fifteen they’re at home,” Downey tells us.

“It’s hard work, and it’s intense, but we’re doing our best to create an atmosphere of homeliness and comfort and an environment which feels open and caring not necessarily an institution.”

The school also encourages its students to encompass this open, caring culture into their own natures and behaviours, and in the things they do, and CGS’ variety of service programs help them achieve this. From dog walking and charity fundraising events, to community volunteering and helping the aged and those with learning support needs.

“There‘s a strong sense of giving something back that I really want to continue to grow. It’s all about being part of a caring community, and about caring what happening around us in the local community. We’re always looking for ways for our students to contribute.”

Facilities and support

As a part of its caring, nurturing outlook, the school’s facilities look after the students’ wellbeing as much as their academia.

The school has two physical buildings that its 90 boarders live in, and all boarding staff are fully responsible for the wellbeing of these students. This encompasses all academic needs, pastoral needs, their health needs, making sure they’re well and comfortable.

Downey’s network of staff is tight-knit and varied. He has a team with some direct reports, some auxiliary staff, and contract staff that provide additional support. The catering arm is an external provider, the relationship for which Downey manages. There are also six resident tutors that live within the boarding community to provide after-hours care to students, there are clinic staff and three registered nurses who provide a great deal of care to the boarders (as well as the day students.)

“We make up 10% of school population, but take up more than half the clinic time,” Downey states “This is because we provide every level of care. From if they stay away from school sick, through to calling specialists for sporting injuries and things like that. So yeah, we’ve got quite a big team that surrounds these boys, and I manage to coordinated all of that and still manage to teach chemistry too.”

One of things Canberra Grammar offers that often other boarding schools don’t, is that the majority of its students have single room which is actually quite uncommon. Where these schools do have single room, it’s usually just for those in year 12. This does depends on the mix of year groups and the number of students, but most of Canberra Grammar’s year nine and upward boarding population have their own rooms, and the few that don’t, share with just one other person. Students avoid the stereotypical boarding style dormitories, and rest easy in their single or double rooms. There are separate study spaces, private areas to change, storage, Wi-Fi, common areas for group and private study, relaxation areas, three common rooms, the clinic and a traditional old dining hall with a very modern kitchen attached to it.

It’s not just these areas that make up day-to-day life for the boarders. Entertainment-wise, the school lets boarders make use of school swimming pools and the gymnasium and it has provided things like table tennis table and pool table. Simple touches, but representative of the enjoyable, homely living environment, atmosphere and culture the school is trying to create through its boarding.

Don’t lose it

“I strongly believe that as soon as you think you’ve got everything sorted, that’s the time you start to lose your edge. Here, we’re in a state of constantly trying to do things the best way we can for our students,” admits Downey. Through regular surveys, parents committees, staff development and open channels for feedback, the school is always comfortable uncomfortable with itself, and always happy to change and adapt to continue on its steady, successful path through boarding excellence.

by

SENATOR THE HON SIMON BIRMINGHAM

Minister for Education and Training

Senator for South Australia

The workplaces of today and the world of the future obviously need people with the right mix of skills for the times, the right attitudes and the right passion for their work. My job as Minister for Education and Training is to ensure we have the right mix of policies in place to foster the sorts of conditions that build those qualities in Australians.

While there are plenty of potential potholes and pitfalls in the road ahead for our education system, they are far outweighed by the opportunities in front of us.

Estimates show around three in four of the fastest-growing occupations need STEM skills – that is, skills in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. The Turnbull Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda and our reforms to schools are directly designed to grab that opportunity.

More and more Australians want specific, hands-on skills that will give them a foothold into a new industry or a boost up in their career. Our new VET Student Loans program clears away Labor’s failed and scandal-plagued VET FEE-HELP scheme and better ties taxpayer loans and support to courses that will deliver students the skills they need for new or better jobs.

As the world globalises, so too does the hunt for the best and brightest minds with international businesses, research houses and innovation incubators looking to poach Australia’s talent. We’re making sure our students can learn from the best in the world but that we provide the right opportunities to keep that talent in Australia and to help them feed their ambitions.

Those are just some of the looming threats and opportunities on the horizon for Australia’s education system. What’s clear however is that we need to ensure our education system is integrated and connected all the way from the high chair to higher education.

Australia cannot hope to train plumbers and mechanics or graduate doctors and scientists if these connected foundations are not in place.

From early learning in child care settings, through schools, vocational education and training and on to higher education and research, an individual builds on their skills and learning.

Laying strong foundations

The global education research consensus is that access to early learning opportunities is key to giving students the best start in life and that early learning has flow-on effects throughout the rest of their education. It’s why our child care reforms supports working parents and early childhood education – those early years have a profound impact on the cognitive, social, emotional and physical development of children.

Our reforms address concerns that the existing early childhood education and care model is inaccessible, inflexible and unaffordable. We want to ensure taxpayer support is better targeted to those families earning the least and working the most, while guaranteeing vulnerable children are given the right level of early education opportunities.

We know that if a child starts school behind the pack without the right interventions and supports to catch them up, they fall further and further behind as they grow older. That’s why we want to improve early years’ education and child care for all Australian children, regardless of income or location.

Preschool helps prepare children for the challenges ahead at school so that they can get the best possible start. We want all children to benefit and have included stronger targets to help ensure that federal funding for preschool increases opportunities for Indigenous children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

While the Government will always have the key role to play in delivering fair and affordable early childhood education and care opportunities, many businesses have seen the benefits their involvement can have. Many business leaders I’ve spoken with point out that their investment in child care and early learning for their employees’ children delivers significant returns in the form of a happier workforce, increased productivity and longer-term, a smarter generation of potential hires.

The idea of education for all has a long and proud history in Australia and it’s why the Turnbull Government has committed a record levels of funding for schools that will only continue to grow. Unfortunately while funding has been increasing, our students’ performance in several local and international tests and benchmarks that came out last year, showed there was some stagnation and even decline in results.

Australia has schools filled with incredible educators, but those results worry policymakers like me, not to mention the families and parents across the country.

So while it’s clear a strong level of funding is needed for our schools, and the OECD recognises we have that in Australia, we also need to focus on how that funding is used. Funding alone doesn’t guarantee great schools where students can achieve their full potential.

That means ensuring our record and growing levels of investment are properly distributed according to need, but the Turnbull Government also wants to tie that money to states and territories implementing reforms that evidence shows will boost student outcomes.

Ultimately those reforms are about creating a smarter Australia. That means students who have the skills they need to succeed, but also students who one day will be industry leaders, business moguls, world changers and thought makers.

To that end, our Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes reforms build on an extensive amount of work we’ve done over the last three years in improving the training of new teachers, our de-cluttering of the National Curriculum and investment in modern skills like coding through the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

We are working to implement a range of evidence-based initiatives to support students by focusing on outcomes in literacy, numeracy and STEM subjects, helping lift teacher quality and better preparing our children for life after school. You can read more about those initiatives at www.education.gov.au

Pathways to success

Our secondary students need to develop the right skills to fill the jobs of the future.

Vocational education and training (VET) is set apart from other types of education by its close links with industry and its direct employment outcomes. Indeed, students can be confident that the skills they’re developing will prepare them for not only the jobs of today but also those of the future.

The work-relevance and flexibility of VET courses appeals to a broad range of Australia’s population. In 2015 alone, 4.5 million, or around one in four, adults were in the training system. This included secondary students in pre-apprenticeships, young adults combining work with part-time study, and mature students seeking skills to advance their careers or opening up a different career path.

Most Australians would unfortunately be familiar with the stories about vulnerable students being ripped off or conned into signing up for courses they would never complete after Labor changed VET FEE-HELP and opened the floodgates to shonky providers. Once data emerged highlighting the issues with VET FEE-HELP, the Coalition acted to close Labor’s loopholes. While the 20 measures our government put in place over 2015 and 2016 have stemmed some of the losses in VET FEE-HELP, with total 2016 loans projected to be hundreds of millions of dollars lower than in 2015, it is also clear that a completely new program was essential to weed out the rorters and restore credibility to VET.

The new safeguards we’ve put in place through our VET Student Loans program mean students can have confidence that the training they are receiving is aligned to workplace needs and strong employment outcomes, and is being delivered by training providers who have met the tougher benchmarks we have set. At the same time, taxpayers can have confidence the loans the Government is providing are for genuine students, learning skills that will contribute to the economy and increasing the likelihood the loans will be repaid.

One of the key changes has been to acknowledge that while our education system should include opportunities for students to pursue particular passions, taxpayers rightly expect that their loans for VET courses should be aligned to employment opportunities which is why we’ve worked with states and territories to determine which courses we will subsidise per the skills they have determined are in demand.

In the broader skills space, we are committed to creating more opportunities for Australians to complete apprenticeships. We know that this model of training, combining study with real world experience, produces job-ready graduates with the skills needed in modern workplaces. We’re exploring a range of reforms to support students into and through apprenticeships, and to ensure the design of the system meets the needs of both students and employers.

 For students that choose higher education to start a career, the Turnbull Government will this year detail reforms to ensure the system fosters excellence, accessibility and fairness but we also want to ensure it is sustainable for future generations. The costs to taxpayers of higher education, have, over recent years, grown dramatically. Since 2009, with the demand driven system, taxpayer funding for Commonwealth supported places in higher education has increased by 67 per cent as compared to 33 per cent growth in nominal GDP over the same period of time.

An important principle however is that while the Commonwealth is the principal funder of universities, that they retain their autonomy. We need to give them the support but also the freedom to evolve and retain their competitive edge in an era of profound economic, industrial and technological change.

At stake is the wellbeing of 1.4 million students at 41 universities and 126 non-university higher education providers.

The biggest challenge that policymakers face is to ensure universities and higher education institutions are places for students to not only develop knowledge and fulfil their dreams, but also places that provide skills that students need to be job-ready. That means universities need to support and encourage students so they aren’t just another number on a seat but so they acquire worthy qualifications that advance not just their own job prospects but the potential that they will become innovators or entrepreneurs who create many more jobs in the future. On the part of students it means giving them the tools to make wise choices by entering courses they aren’t just passionate about, but ones with great prospects at the end of them.

Student experiences show there’s a range of factors that lead to student attrition and it is going to take concerted efforts from educators and policymakers to reduce it. Universities and higher education providers in particular must take responsibility for the students they enrol because the attrition rate has hovered around 15 per cent for the last decade.

We’ve heard too many stories about students who have changed courses, dropped out because they made the wrong choices about what to study, students who didn’t realise there were other entry pathways or who started a course with next to no idea of what they were signing themselves up for. With around one in three students not completing their studies within six years, we’ve taken action to ensure they are empowered to make choices about their courses that best suit them with an additional $8.1 million investment in the popular Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching website and we’re working with the higher education sector to bring more transparency to the admissions processes so students know exactly what they’re signing up for.

There are also a number of other specific initiatives we’ve been implementing to connect students with job opportunities, such as $28.2 million for a national PhD internship program so higher degree graduates get the right skills and qualifications for the jobs of the future. There will be 1400 internships over the next four years with a focus on greater engagement of women in STEM.

 Through the National Innovation and Science Agenda we’ve also increased incentives for universities to collaborate with businesses to tackle real-world problems and deliver solutions that help Australian industries and families. For example, our changes to the Linkage Project scheme means when researchers and businesses come to the Government with strong proposals that will clearly deliver real benefits for industry and Australians, we can green light them quickly. We sped up the processes for approving Linkage Projects that fund collaborations between researchers and businesses and we made changes so that grants could be made year-round so worthy projects don’t need to wait months and months until applications open

Going forward, we will have a National Research Infrastructure Roadmap to underpin investment decisions over the next decade about which projects align to the national interest and should getting taxpayer support.

There’s also much to be said for the value of our international reputation for education. Last year more than half a million students from over 200 countries made us the third most popular education destination in the world. February 2017 ABS figures revealed education exports earned a record $21.8 billion in 2016 – up 17 per cent on 2015.  It means knowledge is the nation’s third biggest export sector. It’s why last year we launched the National Strategy for International Education 2025 to maintain Australia’s role as a global leader in education, training and research by focusing the efforts of the policymakers, businesses and education institutions with a vested interest in the sector’s future.

I hope my contribution has given you plenty to mull and think about in the context of how our education system is placed for the future. There is significant change afoot and our guiding principle has always been how do we secure our strengths and advantages and exploit the opportunities we can give for this and future generations in the education system.

Our reforms across the entire education and training system—from pre-school through vocational education and training and higher education and post graduate qualifications—are all geared to meet the current and future needs of both students and our nation.

Finally, I always appreciate feedback and ideas so if you’d like to get in touch or to keep across the latest news in this space, you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/simonbirmingham or Twitter at @birmo, or you can email me at minister@education.gov.au