16/02/2020 Will we get an updated Melbourne Declaration?

| Dr Rachel Buchanan

Will we get an updated

Melbourne Declaration?

MARCH 2, 2019MARCH 2, 2019 / RACHEL BUCHANAN

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Signed on the 5 December 2008 the Melbourne Declaration
(h p://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/national_declaration_on_the_educational_goals_for_young_australians.pdf)
supersedes the 1989 Hobart Declaration and the 1999 Adelaide Declaration. The
Melbourne Declaration outlines ‘The Educational Goals for Young Australians’
and represented collaboration and joint agreement between all Australian
Education ministers – the federal education minister and the eight education
ministers of the states and territories. Goal One states that ‘Australian schooling
promotes equity and excellence’ and Goal Two is that ‘All young Australian become:
successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens’ (p.
7).

Many of the elements of the Melbourne Declaration were present in both the
Hobart and Adelaide Declarations. Common elements of the three national
educational goals documents include:

the desire for Australia’s schooling system to be characterised by ‘excellence’

a holistic view of education, which provides for students’ intellectual, physical,
moral spiritual and aesthetic development.
to develop in students an appreciation of our cultural heritage
a desire to equip students for the future workplace and to meet the emerging
needs of the economic workforce
(h ps://drbuchananresearch.com/2017/03/05/examining-the-education-policy-
context-in-australia-by-looking-closely-at-the-melbourne-declaration/)
to foster positive a itudes to vocational training and life-long learning
the creation of an active and informed citizenry
provisions for the development of students’ fitness and health
a robust curriculum that includes basic literacy and numeracy; computing and
technological skills, maths and science; Australian history and geography, the

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creative arts, languages other than English, and a values education that includes
ethics, environmental concerns and social justice.

In addition to these common elements, the Hobart Declaration (signed in 1989)

describes the establishment of efforts to develop a national curriculum and the
commitment of the states to the establishment of a common handwriting style,
common age of school entry and strategies to improve the quality of teaching
(MCEECDYA, 2009).

We are due for an update

In late 2018, the Federal Minister for education Dan Tehan announced that he
would meet with the Education ministers in 2019 to discuss updating the
Melbourne Declaration. Previous NSW Education Minister Verity Firth reflects
(h ps://www.smh.com.au/education/desperately-disappointing-10-years-since-the-
melbourne-declaration-20181201-p50jk5.html) on the Melbourne Declaration 10
years on:

It is good to see the Education Minister Dan Tehan announce that he will be
taking a plan to update the Melbourne Declaration to the next Education
Council meeting in December. However, rather than going back to the drawing
board and a empting to reshape a whole new vision, I would suggest that
education ministers concentrate on the hardest piece of the policy puzzle –
implementation.

But what has changed in the intervening decade is the abundance of policy
work mapping specific pathways towards those goals.

The historic Gonski Review Report identified in 2011 that Australia has an
unacceptable correlation of low levels of achievement and students from low
socioeconomic and Indigenous backgrounds, and according to OECD data,
Australia is one of the few countries in the OECD where the inequality gap
between our highest and lowest performers is widening.

[…]

Reflecting on the Melbourne Declaration’s original goals a decade later, two

things become apparent: that they are as relevant now as they were then, and
that we still have a long way to go in achieving them.

Let us never forget that education is an engine for hope. It is powerfully

transformative. The Melbourne Declaration marked a high point in political and
sector consensus about the key educational goals for young Australians. The
lack of real action, particularly in relation to the Gonski funding reforms, is
desperately disappointing. Ten years is an entire generation for a student.

The review of the Melbourne Declaration hasn’t gone

ahead
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16/02/2020 Will we get an updated Melbourne Declaration? | Dr Rachel Buchanan

However, the meeting of Ministers to update the Melbourne Declaration hasn’t

happened as planned. According to a media release from the AEU
(h p://www.aeufederal.org.au/news-media/media-releases/2019/february/tehans-
melbourne-declaration-review-total-farce), Victoria’s Education Minister James
Merlino pulled out of a national discussion forum scheduled in February. “Min
Merlino said he was not prepared to sit in a room and discuss a vision for national
education with Min. Tehan”.

The Australian Education Union has stated:

The Australian Education Union will not participate in any review of the
Melbourne Declaration which does not have the support of every state and
territory Minister and while the critical issue of funding our schools fairly is
outstanding.

We support Min. Merlino’s decision not to take part in the national forum, and
we will also be boyco ing this shambolic review process.

What does this mean for the Melbourne Declaration?

The commonalities between the Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne Declarations

suggest that the various education systems in Australia have been working slowly
towards the same goals for the past three decades.

We could interpret the lack of an update as a sign that although the goals of the
Melbourne Declaration have not yet been met, they are still worthy and worth
working towards. Is there any need to re-think them when instead we could
continue implement them?

Another interpretation is that the Morrison Government lacks the political will to
get all the necessary heads around the table for a discussion about the overarching
goals for education of Australia’s young people.

Regardless of the meaning behind the delay it is worth thinking about the
Melbourne Declaration and what it says about the purposes of education in
Australia.

The Melbourne Declaration as a statement of

Educational Purpose

[My colleague Amy MacPherson and I had the following to say about the
Melbourne Declaration in 2013 (h p://fellowship.austcolled.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/27.-Prof-Ed-Oct-2013.pdf)] Viewing the Melbourne
Declaration as a document that justifies purposes as diverse as; increased
standardised testing, concerns and action on issues of educational equity, increased
use of ICT, be er physical activity, and informed environmental programs,
warrants education returning to some core questions.

What goals should we have and why?

What priority should be a ached to each?
Are the means selected compatible with them?

Such questions are not exactly new to education, however, may have been lost in
recent years in the ongoing debates concerned with identifying the most efficient
means to deliver schooling. If we concentrate purely on the means of delivery we
miss the opportunity to stand back and ask ourselves a host of important questions
about the direction in which we are heading.

Are we concerned about the role of the individual to society (and not just a
national society but a global one)?

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Are we concerned about the contemporary meanings a ached to justice, equity
(both generational and intergenerational), inclusion, multiculturalism,
wellbeing, sustainability and the current state of our democracy?
And are we concerned about who is advocating a particular ideology for us to
follow and their reasons for doing so? (and the authors are not exempt from
this).

Education itself (and not just economics and politics) is an important stakeholder in
the debate about educational purposes. Being engaged with these issues is not easy
for any of us, but they are important because it “requires that we keep working on
the question as to what is distinctively educational about education” (Biesta, 2012,
p.2).

References:

Biesta, G. (2012). Philosophy of Education for the Public Good: Five challenges and
an agenda. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44(6), 581-593.

Chapman, A. & Buchanan, R. (2013). Educational purposes and the Melbourne

Declaration, Professional Educator, 12, 5, pp. 24 -27.
h p://fellowship.austcolled.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/27.-Prof-Ed-Oct-
2013.pdf (h p://fellowship.austcolled.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/27.-
Prof-Ed-Oct-2013.pdf)

Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth

Affairs [MCEECDYA]. (2009). The Hobart Declaration on Schooling (1989). Accessed
th
on 28 August, 2011, from
h p://www.mceecdya.edu.au/mceecdya/hobart_declaration,11577.html
(h p://www.mceecdya.edu.au/mceecdya/hobart_declaration,11577.html)

Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs

[MCEETYA]. (1999). The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the
Twenty-First Century. Accessed on 28th August, 2011 from
h p://www.curriculum.edu.au/mceetya/nationalgoals/natgoals.htm
(h p://www.curriculum.edu.au/mceetya/nationalgoals/natgoals.htm)

Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs

[MCEETYA]. (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians,
December 2008. Retrieved from
h p://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf
(h p://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf)

Equity, policy
EDUC6352 , EDUCATION , MEDIA , MELBOURNE
DECLARATION , POLITICS , SCHOOLING

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