Promoting the quality of school education has been an issue of international, national
and local significance in Australia over the past three decades. Since 1973 the pursuit
of quality in school education has been embedded in the rhetoric of educational
discourse and framed by the wider policy context.
This study focuses on the Commonwealth (federal) government's policy agenda to
promote the quality of schooling between 1987 and 1996. During this ten year period,
successive Labor governments sought to promote quality through a range of policy
initiatives and funding programs. Through extensive documentary research, fifty
semi-structured interviews and one focus group with elite policy makers and
stakeholders, the study examines how the Commonwealth government's 'quality
agenda' was constructed and perceived. An analysis of relevant government reports
and ministerial statements provides documentary evidence of this agenda, both in
terms of stated policy intentions and the actual policy initiatives and funding programs
set in place in the period 1987-1996. Set against this analysis are elite informants'
perspectives on Commonwealth policy-making in this period - how quality was
conceptualised as a policy construct and as a policy solution, the influences on
Commonwealth policies for schools, whether there was a 'quality agenda' and how
that agenda was constructed and implemented. Informants generally perceived quality
as a diffuse, but all-encompassing concept which had symbolic and substantive value
as a policy construct. In the context of Commonwealth schools' policies, quality was
closely associated with promoting equity, outcomes, accountability, national
consistency in schooling and teacher quality. Promoting the quality of 'teaching and
learning' in Australian schools took on particular significance in the 1990s through a
number of national policy initiatives brokered by the Commonwealth government.
An exploration of policy processes through interview data reveals the multi-layered
nature of policy-making in this period, involving key individuals, intergovernmental
and national forums. In particular, it highlights the importance of a strong, reformist
Commonwealth Minister (John Dawkins), a number of 'policy brokers' within and
outside government and national collaboration in constructing and maintaining the
Commonwealth's 'quality agenda' for schools. While several Australian education
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policy analysts have described policy-making in this period in terms of 'corporate
federalism' (Lingard, 1991, 1998; Bartlett, Knight and Lingard, 1991; Lingard,
O'Brien and Knight, 1993), a different perspective emerges from this study on policymaking
at the national level. Despite unprecedented levels of national collaboration on
matters related to schooling in this period, this research reveals an apparent
ambivalence on the part of some elite policy makers towards the Commonwealth's
policy agenda and its approach to schools' policy-making within the federal arena.
Policy coherence emerged as a relevant issue in this study through analysis of
interview data and a review of related Australian and international policy literature.
Overall, informants perceived the Commonwealth's quality agenda to be relatively
coherent in terms of policy intentions, but much less coherent in terms of policy
implementation. Perceptions of Commonwealth domination, state parochialism,
rivalry, delaying tactics and a general lack of trust and cooperation between policy
players and stakeholders were cited as major obstacles to 'coherent' policy-making.
An analysis of informants' views on policy-making in this period highlights features of
coherent policy-making which have theoretical and practical significance in the
Australian context.
This research also demonstrates the benefits of going beyond the study of written
policy texts to a richer analysis of recent policy history based on elite interviewing.
The wide range of views offered by elite policy makers and stakeholders in this study
both confirms and challenges established views about policy-making in the period
1987-1996. Elite interviewing lent itself to a grounded theory approach to data
collection and analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). This
approach was significant in that it allowed relevant issues to emerge in the process of
research, rather than relying on 'up front' theoretical frameworks for the analysis of
data.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219447 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Welsh, Mary, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Mary Welsh |
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