Infrastructure Supporting Teachers in the Country

Questions of Equity Arising from Downsizing and Restructuring

Abstract

Australia has long been of interest for its attention to educational equity by the relative quality of its state based provision of schooling in a country with a similar landmass to the 48 mainland states of the USA but a population of only 18 million. The six states and two territories had organised centralised systems of schooling which managed to ensure qualified teachers, facilities, policy frameworks and curriculum guidelines have been made available to almost all students. Even in remote and isolated settings, country hostels or distance education courses enabled most students (other than Aboriginal) to participate in terms of relative equality in forms of 'mainstream' schooling. However, in the current economic conditions, 'read' by the Australian  government, and supported by most of the world's economic infrastructure such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the typical response to a shrinking tax basis has been to reduce government spending on education and other  human services. This reduction of expenditure has been experienced in quite uneven ways, both between different states and across different locations and demographies of any particular state school system. Rural and remote schools, in particular, have been little studied in relationship to policies of devolution of certain powers and responsibilities, restructuring of curriculum and support services and in particular policies of restructuring and downsizing under which different forms of what might be called 'educational infrastructure' have been removed. The relative equality of provision across the country has been eroded, sometimes significantly.