Education in Australia Reforms World Economies

Question: Describe about the Education in Australia Reforms for World Economies. Answer: Introduction Education is a necessary requirement for all individuals in all world economies. Literacy levels determine the level of economic growth of economies. The assessment done internationally shows that some of the economies spend very little per student and still gets high-performance results. On the other hand, some economies like Australia spends more, but performance keeps on falling. This has created a controversy on which is the best method of funding (I.e. should the spending be low or high?). Countries that have high literacy level have been observed to be more productive than those with education system being underdeveloped. Many challenges are facing the acquisition of education in most economies. One of these challenges is that of low income amongst households. Some parents owing to the low-income levels are unable to take their children to better schools, or worse still to even those whos the teaching practice is not supportive. Some areas are underdeveloped such that there is no nearby school; children are therefore forced to walk very long distances to have access to schools. Owing to these challenges, Australia has strived to minimize the effects of these challenges by introducing various reforms. In March 2016, at Canberra, there was a University Australia Summit where Mr. Simon Birmingham the education minister noted that higher education in Australia was in dire need for reforms.Some of these reforms already undertaken shall be discussed in this paper, and also others that have been proposed. The international rank of Australian literacy, reading, science and mathematics have been recorded low in the current years. Deregulation of Fees The deregulation of fees was announced by the Australian government in 2014s budget. Students are always fighting for fair high education fees, they do not easily allow the government to push the fees up as a form of shifting a higher cost share from the public to the students pocket. Mr. Ariel Zohar, the president of University Student Union (RUSU) Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), argued that the current funding model is renowned globally and that, it is a fair system to both the taxpayers and the students (Burke, 2016). The argument of Mr. Birmingham is that the reforms would support innovation and ensure the sustainability of the federal budget. The current proportion of the fees that the government pays to facilitate higher education is 60 %, students only pay 40 % of the total fees by means of FEE HELP loans. The campaigns against fee deregulations in Australia are active. Students and some leaders perceive this as inadequate funding towards higher education. Birm ingham noted that the funding system in Australia needed reforms as it was not perfect (Knott, 2015). Ms. Colee warned that the protest would continue if further financial burden were transferred to the students. Currently, students are also concerned about the quality of their education. According to Dr. Dow (2016), the higher education sector radically overhauled by the combination of measures introduced by the 2014-15 budget. There was a proposition by the coalition government to deregulate the places provision by allowing providers of non-universities (includes; Technical and Further Education Colleges and private providers) to access places supported by Commonwealth. Own uncapped prices will be set by the higher education providers as the proposition intends to allow them to do so. Through the deregulation of fees, the government will be able to support more places for higher education. The deregulation was however postponed from taking place in 2016 (Moodie, 2016). It was expected to be implemented in 2017 as noted by Yaxley (2016). Improving the Quality of Education Reforms The government has devoted some huge sums of money to support the improvement of the quality of education. The student achievement plan was on a budget of $ 73.6 billion aimed at promoting excellence in schools. In additional to this, the Turnbull government has a planned future reforms which involve tying up some $ 1.2 billion on a need-based funds distribution and reforms in schools (Turnbull and Birmingham, 2016). This is expected to instill confidence in parents that their children are getting the education that they deserve to get. The funding of schools is targeted to grow each year as the cost of delivering education rises. The initiative that this funding will be tied to is that of evidence-based where the results and performance of the students is expected to improve. However, high lending has been questioned by many researchers through the international assessment. Compared to Australia, the spending of Korea and Poland per student is low, but still, they beat Australia in performance. Moreover, countries like the United States, Norway, and Sweden spends more, but the education performance is low (Turnbull and Birmingham, 2016). This poses a challenge for the policy makers to identify the reason behind this inverse relationship between spending and the performance level. A greater level of funding schools may not achieve the intended objectives if the funds are not allocated to areas that will improve performance. The extra funding should be used to address generational deficiencies, but in most cases, the current school system uses these funds to for example build structures like pretty school gates. The government obtains the money used for extra funding from taxing its citizens. It should, therefore, ensure that these funds are used effectivel y. Proper usage of such funds could be ensured by the introduction of more reforms in the schooling system. Conclusion Funding requires proper management for it to effectively bring the desired results. Most of the funds allocated to schools are utilized in some areas that are of no much help to the ability of childrens acquisition of their education. The strategies and interventions supported by the additional; funding should impact the performance of students. This should be made transparent to the parents and families. The deregulation of fees may lay heavy burdens on the student which may, in turn, result in many students not being able to acquire high education. Despite the government allowing the capping of the fees by the higher education providers, it should consider the possible negative effects that may result. The deregulation would encourage a higher level of income inequality. I.e. only those students that are well-off financially will be able to cope with the new system. 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