THE HEADMASTERS CONFERENCE OF THE INDEPENDENT

SCHOOLS OF AUSTRALIA .

and

THE ASSOCIATION OF HEADS OF INDEPENDENT GIRLS'

SCHOOLS IN AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE:

.  THE ROLE AND PROBLEM OF THE PRINCIPAL

Friday,  1 July 1983, 9.00 a .m .

Brisbane Grammar School

CLOSING ADDRESS:

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

Barry 0 Jones MP

w.

?

I use as my opening text words used by Woody Allen in a

recent graduation address in the US: ' *

'More than any other time in history,  mankind faces a

crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter   hopelessness. The other, to total extinction.  Let us

pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.1

As one who comes, educationally, from the other side of   the tracks I am glad to have the opportunity of talking

to you about planning for the future,  something that has

preoccupied me for nearly forty years.

I am a creature of my time, born in the nadir of the Great   Depression (1932) and my education was shaped by World War

II, the explosion of the first atomic bomb, the Cold War

and the threats to human personality from destructive   technology, -totalitarianism, and unrestrained materialism.

I apologise in advance if, like Hamlet, my speech is full

of quotations but after weeks of wrestling with Budget   programming I am glad to have the opportunity to think out

loud and tell you about some of the things that worry me,

and some that encourage me, when I am contemplating the   future.

This is a year of important centenaries, among them the

death of Karl Marx with his theories of the class struggle,   and the birth of J M Keynes whose economic theories were

powerful influences on Western governments for thirty years

after the war in welfare policies and in central direction

of the economy to promote employment. Back in the more

mundane world of politics, 1983 is also the centenary of   two contrasting practitioners, both products of the public

school system, Clement Attlee (Haileybury and Oxford) who

was an important personal influence on me, and Stanley

Melbourne Bruce (Melbourne Grammar and Oxford). The first

challenged the existing hierarchical structure of society

and the role of the privileged, while the second tried to

reinforce both.

3

You preside over the iceberg tip of an Australian school

system which was essentially derived from Great Britain.

Just like the ABC,  you have been the caller of a Foreign  Field which is forever England.  Your system was based on an

implicit -and often explicit - assumption of a hierarchical

society, buttressed by monarchy,  religion and property in

which it was assumed that only a comparatively small elite

was capable of benefitting from higher education or was,  to

coin a phrase 1  born to rule 1  .  .

I often think with approval of the words Richard Rumbold

spoke on the scaffold (1685):

11 never could believe that Providence had sent a few

men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride,

and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.'

Raymond Williams, in his radical classic The Long

Revolution (Penguin Books,  1961: reprinted 1980), has

pointed to 1  the very odd principle that has been built into  modern English education:  that those who are slowest to

learn should have the shortest time to learn, while those

who learn quickly will be able to extend the process for

as much as seven years beyond them.  This is the reality

of "equality of opportunity" which is a very different  thing from real social equality'  (pp 167-168).

The assumption that most working class children were

virtually ineducable was a universal belief in the 19th

century, and was restated officially as recently as the

late 1940s as if it was scientifically established, relying  on the findings of Sir Cyril Burt that only 107= of young

people could benefit from tertiary studies. This assumption

is taking a long time to break down.

It is no coincidence that Britain and the two school

systems most closely based on it - Australia and New  Zealand - share a remarkable statistic: that more than 607o

of 15-19 year olds are in the labour force,  that is, 'in

work or actively seeking it'. Â·

4

By way of comparison,  the labour forceÂ· participation rate

of 15-19 year olds in the labour force is 24% in Japan,

28% in the US, 337, in Canada and 347= in Sweden. We have

Ã¢ÂÂ to ask the question:  do these nations have it all wrong?

Is it contrary to natural law to have the majority of young  people completing their secondary education?

You may well say in answer: 'But these remarks do not apply

to us. The overwhelming majority of our Students continue

to Year 12'. That is true.

Of Independent School students, 907o stay on past the  statutory leaving age,  compared to 427, in Catholic Schools

and only 307, in Government Schools.

These figures,  if sustained,  will have very serious

implications for our future.

First, they indicate that compared to our technological

competitors Australia will maintain a velry low and even a

deterioriating skill base which will prevent us from going

through the transition to a more stimulating, diverse and  affluent society with the fullest development of human  capacity. Ã¢ÂÂ

Second, we will become increasingly dependent on software

and hardware produced by people who are cleverer than we

are.  . Â·

Third, the figures indicate that we are maintaining sharp

divisions between the educational expectations and

performance of the middle class and the working class.

Let me take up these three points. The first was the

implications for the future of our low skill base.

5

Australia has 31.77= of its 17 year olds full time at

school,  a disproportionate number of them in your

establishments, while the Japanese have 88.17=. These

figures suggest prima facie that Australia's prospects in

developing 1  brain based1  industries and professions is

extremely limited. It is true that our figure has increased

rapidly - only 8.47= of 17 year olds were at school in 1956,

but Japan's rate is far higher.

In 1950 about 3.57= of our labour force entrants had

tertiary qualifications of some sort while Japan had less  than 17=, so a contemporary observer would have said that

we were doing well and they were doing badly.  By 1980 our

figure had doubled - to 77= but the Japanese figure had  increased by more than 40007=, to 397=. The figures in Korea,

I learnt recently, are not far behind. How do we compare

now?

My second point was our increasing dependence of foreign

technology due to our deteriorating technological capacity.

Broadly speaking,  Australia is in the middle rank of OECD

nations in terms of government expenditure on R&D.  However,

it falls near the bottom of the table for OECD nations in

terms of gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) on account of the

very small contribution by industry.

In Australia industry performs only half as much R&D as

government.  By contrast,  in Sweden,  industry performs eight

times as much R&D as government.

R&D as 7= GDP

Source Performance

USA

Sweden

Australia

Netherlands

Bus.  Govt.

1.19 1.25

1.11 0.71 0.48 0.79

0.93 0.93

Bus.  Govt.  1.73 0.33

.  1.33 0.16

0.49 0.53

-1.01 0.42

6

In the period 1955-80, there was a striking change in the  per capita order of GDP in the technologically advanced

world.  '

The resource' rich nations, such as USA, Canada,  Australia,  and UK fell in ranking while resource-poor nations,  such

as Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark,  the Netherlands, Japan  and Singapore rose very rapidly. The major factor in the

rise of resource-poor nations has been the proportion of  export earnings directly attributable to intellectual  input: invention,  research and development,  product

innovation, design, patents,  royalties and copyright.

More than 607, of the annual export earnings of Japan,

France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy depend on 1  brain-  based' industries, while Australia's figure- is less than

5%. The" skill-based earnings of our industrial  contemporaries will grow. Ours will contract unless we have  a fundamental change in economic direction.

My third point, on which I want to concentrate,  deals with

the different class expectations in education and their

implications for the future.

Australia has a split level education system which  perpetrates social, ethnic, class and regional divisions  in society instead of eliminating them.

The first level produces the officers and NCOs of

Australia's social army and is:

7

1. predominantly urban middle class ; 2. achievement oriented, with a high self-image;

3. aimed to produce qualifications for a career,  with

a presumption of success, affluence, readily

marketable skills, the expectation of professional  satisfaction and autonomy in choosing a work pattern;

4. marked by a high degree of absorption into tertiary

education.

The second level provides an educational minimum for the .

'other ranks' and rejects from the system and is: '

1. predominantly working class, ethnic, rural or

regional;

2. failure oriented,  with a low self-image; 3. aimed at producing competitors for a declining number

of relatively semi-skilled or unskilled jobs,  often,

poorly paid and with a low degree of work satisfaction

and little personal autonomy; 4. marked by a low degree of absorption into tertiary

education.

Australia faces alarming increases in unemployment and a  widening.social and economic division between the

information rich and the information poor unless a  democratic, pluralistic, and egalitarian education system

is adopted which will give working class, rural and migrant

children the same range of educational options - including

access to tertiary education and the securing of ..

professional qualifications’  - as are enjoyed at present

by the urban middle and professional classes.

Australian participation rates in education are marked by

enormous wastage among students of working class origin,

of migrant families,  of country families, and girls in the

second level.

The educational and occupational futures of most Australian

children can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy

by asking three questions: Where do they live? What school

do they go to? What does father do? '  "

The conventional wisdom in Australia accepts the Â· embourgeoisment of education almost without query.  Middle

class politicians and educationalists take for granted it  is futile to expect higher participation rates for working

class students beyond year 10 - and this View is widely

held in the working class itself.

Expectation of failure in education in particular areas

leads to 1ow levels of demand,  and the self-fulfilling

prophesy of failure leads to the cycle of low participation

continuing.

Australia is often described,  quite inaccurately in my view  and as the Commission of Inquiry into Poverty (1975)

demonstrated quite conclusively,  as a classless society.

In surveys, almost two thirds of Australians call

themselves middle class. Professor Dennis Altman has

suggested that:

1  the myth of a "classless" Australia arose from the

high degree of homogeniety in social behaviour. --'Class -  differences are not immediately apparent from speech

dress or behaviour patterns ... Constant reiteration  of the theme "we are all middle-class now" serves ...

to disguise the realities of power relationships.'

Politically, the last 35 years have seen the almost  effortless accession of one public school man after another

to the Australian Prime Ministership,  re-enforcing our

natural sense of deference to those set in authority over

us, as the insignia of office passed from Wesley to Wesley

(twice), Geelong Grammar,  Sydney Grammar (a bit of an

anomaly there,  and not for long), through a hiatus of three

years of Labor rule (Knox Grammar and Canberra Grammar,

with a detour via Telopea Park High School), to Melbourne

Grammar - until in March 1983 came the transition to Perth

9

Secondary Modern.  You may be comforted to reflect that the

transition may not be as abrupt as it seems,  as Perth Â· "

Secondary Modern is devoted to the principles of social

Darwinianism too.

Your political influence has always been vastly greatly  than your numbers suggest and the attitudes of successive

governments to per capita grants confirm this. Politically

you are untouchables.

I was disturbed by the recent figures disclosed in a  confidential report for the New South Wales Department of

Education on regional participation rates in government

schools. The figures were published, as inevitably happens

with confidential reports, in the Sydney Morning Herald

(22 June 1983). They showed that in 1981 the average  retention rate to HSC in NSW state high schools was 28.1%,

in Catholic schools 40.4%, and in non-Catholic independent

schools 93.57,.

Just as striking was the extraordinary regional variation

in participation rates within the state school system: in

the state seat of Bligh (Woollahra, Darling Point,  Centennial Park) more than 907= stay on, while in the  Riverstone and Broken Hill seats the figure is less than

157o, a variation in life options of more than 6:1.

Well, you might say,  what has this to do with us? We have

always had exceptionally high figures.

I raise this question by way of hypothetical example only - and it is not to be taken as an expression of Government

policy: 'If a 207, reduction in per capita funding for the

GPS system meant that it is possible to fund a 27, - or 57,

- increase in participation rates and life chances for

working class areas, would you support it, or fight it?'

Perhaps the most depressing part of the Herald's article

was a report of interviews with Year 10 students from a

Western Suburbs school in Sydney:

1  I want to get out of here, it's a waste of time' ,

said Garry,  16, who plans to leave soon and seek an

apprenticeship.

David,  another year 10 student, could not see any

value in staying at school either. '

"What's the use of history and geography?" he said.

"If there was more woodwork, metalwork and motor

mechanics it might be different."' .

This confirms the point made in the recent book by

R W Connell et al Making the Difference: Schools, Families  and Social Division (Allen & Unwin 1982) that many working

class children essentially look backward for their role  models and feel safer contemplating a 1950s type of work

rather than looking forward to the 1990s and beyond. The

authors conclude that the engine that drives most families  is dad's career,  so that if dad is a professional success

who has raced up the ladder in a severely competitive

environment then it won't be too surprising if his

offspring react to intellectual challenge like the  proverbial duck to water,  whereas if dad is an unskilled

or unemployed worker with a deep sense of failure and fear

for the future that model will be adopted too.

The middle class have the great value of adaptability: they

can move in and out of the work force with comparative

ease, move from one state to another with confidence,  go

overseas for long working holidays, and don't worry too

much about whether they will have 35, 40, 45 or 50 years

in work. Some professionals, especially in creative work,

go on into their 80s without loss of facility.

The working class tend to be anchored to a particular job

type and to a specific region:  home ownership,

paradoxically,  is a factor which ties the coal miner to

Cessnock, the sugar worker to Mackay, the steel worker to

Port Kembla, and if the jobs decline there, as they

11

inevitably do in overspecialised regional economies, they

feel unable to move even though the local job market is

collapsing.  They see work,  long service leave  notwithstanding, as a single end-on 50 year stretch which

they dare not drop'out of, even temporarily, for fear that

they will not be able to get back.  At 65, the end of

working life often means the end of social existence as  well, followed by rapid physical decline.

We have failed to grasp the class and regional nature of

sectoral unemployment with its horrific implications for

future social cohesion. The collapse of employment in

mining and manufacturing is not causing great distress in

Bellevue Hill, Toorak or St Lucia. Pupils from Brisbane

Grammar, Cranbrook or Scotch College feel no alarm at a  reduction in jobs as process workers or in apprenticeships  in sheet metal working. Girls from PLC or Merton Hall do

not lie awake at night fretting that they won't get jobs

at Safeway or McDonalds.  Whoever imagined that they would?

We need a revolution in education.  You have already had

it: the rest of Australia has not.

I have always been attracted b y  the scenario that Raymond

Williams laid out twenty years ago in The Long Revolution

as the minimum to aim at for every educationally normal  child:

(a) Extensive practice in the fundamental languages of  English and mathematics;

(b) General knowledge of ourselves and our environment,

taught at the secondary stage not as separate academic

disciplines but as general knowledge drawn from the

disciplines which clarify at a higher stage,  i .e .:

(i) biology, psychology,

(ii) social history, law and political institutions,

sociology, descriptive economics,  geography

including actual industry and trade, '

(iii) physics and chemistry;

(c) History and criticism of literature, the visual arts,

music, dramatic performance,  landscape and

architecture: (d) Extensive practice in democratic procedures, including

meetings, negotiations, and the selection and conduct  of leaders in democratic organizations. Extensive  practice in the use of libraries, newspapers and

magazines, radio and television programmes, and other  sources of information, opinion and influence;

(e) Introduction to at least one other culture, including

its language, history, geography, institutions and  arts, to be given in part by visiting and exchange.

You are already there, even in the last area of foreign  exchange, so much easier in Britain, but so expensive here.

But young gentlemen from the public school system are far

more likely to be fluent in Chinese or French, to have

visited China (and in some cases France), to be experienced  in using computer VDUs, lasers and synthesisers, who

recognise that the 'career open to talents' is a positive  challenge and not a threat. Their exact contemporaries in  the working class contemplate a world of irrelevant skills,

declining work opportunities, mounting frustration and the  threat of increased alienation, anomie, drug dependence

and self destruction.

Let me conclude with my hope for the future.

In an ageÂ·of technological revolution when a lifetime's  professionalism can be assimilated, replicated and

disseminated in a few seconds by computerised technology,  what value can then be put on human experience in the

workplace?

We need to broaden our educational experiences so that

education is seen as a process of growth, self-  actualisation and self-recognition, as a means of pursuing

the abundant life and assisting people to understand the

world around them rather than as a qualification for a  particular job of type of work.

13

As Half Da’ nrendorf wrote in his book On Britain (1982),

changes are happening before our eyes which change the "

priorities traditionally given to production in our lives:

'They do not become unimportant,  to be sure, but they cease

to be all-important ... Perhaps we have already ceased to

live in a work society'  and if so then the puritanical

streak in British (or Australian)  politics loses its point.

(Life is meant to be easier than Malcolm Fraser thought.)

As Anthony Crosland pointed out 25 years ago in The Future

of Socialism 'Total abstinence and a good filing-system

are not now the right signposts to the socialist Utopia

... As our traditional objectives are gradually fulfilled,  and society becomes more social-democratic with the passing

of the old injustices, we shall turn our attention

increasingly to other,  and in the'  long run more important,

spheres - of personal freedom,  happiness, and cultural

endeavour:  the cultivation of leisure, beauty, grace,

gaiety,  excitement,  and of all the, proper pursuits, whether  elevated, vulgar or eccentric, which contribute to the

varied fabric of a full private and family life1  .

Two hundred years ago,  John Adams, later to become second

President of the United States, wrote these words to his -

wife Abigail in a letter from Paris:

1  I must study politics and war that my sons may have

liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons

ought to study mathematics and philosophy,  geography,

natural history, naval architecture, navigation,  commerce and agriculture in order to give their

children a right to study painting,  poetry, music,

architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain1.

Some would think his view was audacious: even more would

think it frivolous. I see it as unusually long sighted.

When Adams wrote' in 1780, the Industrial Revolution was

at its very dawn,  horses and "water power were the main

sources of energy, and most people toiled on farms to keep

themselves alive. The idea of a society where necessary

work - repititive drudgery for subsistence - would fall

to a very small proportion of total time use must have

seemed a piece of visionary raving to' Adams' contemporaries.

Now we have the technological capacity to reduce necessary

work towards vanishing point. We could then do all the  things that Adams hoped for his grandchildren. We can

transform our 1  work society'  into an 'activity society'  .

We have very little idea about what the potential human

beings are capable of. It is about time we found out.

