Is Australia failing to educate?

Glyn Davis
G'day. I'm Glyn Davis and welcome to The Policy Shop, a place where we think about policy choices. In this episode let's talk about education.

Newsreader 1
The latest ranking of top countries in maths and science is out and Australia is falling behind. As a nation Australia was significantly outperformed by nine countries in the OECD including Japan, Canada and Singapore.

Newsreader 2
Well it's been claimed today that Australia's education system is in crisis. Experts have told politicians that the nation's schools are marching backwards and students are stuck in the crossfire. They say that if more money isn't injected immediately there are severe social and economic consequences.

Malcolm Turnbull
Today we're announcing that every school will receive Commonwealth funding on a genuine needs basis consistently across Australia as David Gonski recommended in his report six years ago.

Female:
These students are going to be competing with students from Singapore, students from other countries in the world for global jobs. So in that sense they're not going to be terribly competitive.

Glyn Davis
For close to two decades performance in Australian schools in reading, maths and science has declined steadily. As other countries improve we're left behind and recently reports have questioned the efficacy of Australia's vocational education system and of course higher education has its own arguments.

In this episode principally traversing schooling, but also touching on post school education, we ask how do we ensure that young Australians receive the best education and what might we teach tomorrow's generation that will make sense for a very different world?

To help us answer these questions we are joined by Dr Michelle Bruniges, the Secretary of the Australian Department of Education and Training. Michelle previously led the New South Wales and ACT Departments of Education and has been widely acclaimed for her significant contribution to education through an Order of Australia Award and a Gold Medal Award from the Australian Council of Education Leaders. Michelle, welcome to The Policy Shop.

Michelle Bruniges
Thank you so much.

Glyn Davis
According to the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, Australian students' result in reading, maths and science have declined steadily since 2000. This is significant in maths and science, for example, on average an Australian 15 year old has the problem solving skills equivalent to a 12 year old Korean pupil. How do we make sense of this data and what's driving these results?

Michelle Bruniges
Well Glyn, it's very true that Australians' results have declined despite a whole lot of strategies put in by states and territories and indeed funding from both the Commonwealth and states and territories.

I think when we look internationally we do need to stop, look and listen and to ensure that we have a close look at what other countries who are doing well on the PISA measure are doing and learn from them. At the same time we need to look at our own practice to ensure that we know what we can do better to improve the outcomes for students.

Glyn Davis
The coordinator for PISA linked Australia's steady decline in all three test areas to what they called the country's tolerance of failure in schools. Is this a fair assessment?

Michelle Bruniges
I think that's a bit harsh. My view would be that we have an enormous amount of energy and effort from our teaching workforce out there in support of the children that they teach every day. I think what we need to do is to support our profession even more so to ensure that they get the best they can from the children that they teach every day.

Glyn Davis
You have a background in education assessment, so are there a few people better equipped to think about the PISA and the NAPLAN tests that we're using and how to interpret the data? What sort of success should we be looking for and what should we make of the results we have today?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think with regard to the PISA assessment what we do know is when we look deeply into the data, we do know that we are declining at the top end of achievement more so than the bottom end. That brings questions about how indeed we support all children in all classroom settings and all types of schools to be stretched and to be able to do the best they possibly can.

Remember that NAPLAN really looks at literacy and numeracy where PISA actually looks at the application of skillsets for those children. So on both measures we're just, in the case of NAPLAN, we're maintaining a level of achievement, which isn't good enough. We need to improve on that. With PISA results only every three years we gain that assessment but it is the top end that's actually declining.

Looking at both scales we need to ensure that teachers in classrooms are aware about individual student achievement and what they may do to stretch every student, have high expectations for every student and work really hard at doing that.

Glyn Davis
Just staying with NAPLAN for a second, of course it has its critics who argue that the technology is problematic, that students dislike it and that schools don't necessarily find its value in enhancing their teaching program. What's the departmental view of NAPLAN and its value?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think from NAPLAN, when NAPLAN was first introduced in 2008, it gave us a good national measure of literacy and numeracy. It is a measure that gives us a measure at one point in time on some aspects of literacy and numeracy. But as an educator I would be the very first to say that literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills and teachers need to look at that evidence.

Have a look at what the strengths and weaknesses are and how they compare within their school, across schools and across states and territories as one means of comparison about what they decide to do next in a teaching and learning context.

Glyn Davis
Of course as an educator you're looking intensely at the other countries that are measured by PISA. For example, Singapore in our region, the highest achieving primary and secondary schools in international education tests in maths and science. What lessons do you draw from our region as well as from other consistently high performing countries such as Finland, such as Canada?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think there are many lessons that we need to take stock of from our colleagues in high performing countries. Some of the research that are done in places like Singapore, like Finland, actually look at the nature and structure of the day. They look at the high value of teaching as the status of the teaching profession which is incredibly important. They look at principalship and the importance of school leadership. They look at how to best use teachers in schools. Sometimes that means bigger class sizes, sometimes that means smaller groups, to ensure that they're meeting the needs of the students.

So many, many lessons we can learn. We need to look at their policy and we need to look at their school improvement initiatives. We need to have a look and make sure that we understand the full structure of those education systems, which is markedly different from ours in many aspects, but is certainly a source of valuable information for us to reflect and refine our reform initiatives here in the Australian context.

Glyn Davis
Can you say a little more about the status of the teaching profession and why that's a variable that matters?

Michelle Bruniges
Oh look, Glyn, as a teacher I still hold that very dear. As a profession I think it absolutely matters. I think teachers take on responsibility for other people's children every day and what a great trust parents have and carers have in school systems and classrooms when we do that. I think our teachers work extraordinarily hard. They have a complex task in working with classrooms with a whole lot of changes in curriculum, with structures and I actually think we should be very, very proud of the teaching profession and indeed need to recognise their achievements in dealing with a whole range of things that happen in a school context every day of every week of every year. Incredible support that our teachers need.

Glyn Davis
Indeed. So are there things that policy can do to change the status of the teaching profession in our community or are we dealing here with a wider set of social issues that are not perhaps in the control of the government?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think it's a combination of both. I do think here in the Australian context we have a set of national professional teaching standards and I think that does a great deal towards articulating and describing the range of skills that we have from accomplished teachers to lead teachers. I think that's an important advancement in the national architecture in recognising of teachers, particularly those with exemplar skills and how they might mentor other teachers to become.

I think in pre-service education a lot to do with ensuring that our pre-service courses for our teachers are in line with the current curriculum content and our universities do a fantastic job at supporting the pre-service needs of our workforce. Looking closely at how those teachers participate in practicum, how that's supervised or how we recognise their achievements. A whole range of things in pre-service that we're really keen to support the profession.

Remembering that once you enter the workforce as a teacher it's a long haul and so continuous professional development of those teachers to ensure that they keep up with technological advancements and changes in curriculum is an important component of us showing that we value our teaching profession and that in fact will help us raise the status of the profession.

Glyn Davis
I mentioned your doctorate in educational measurement which of course makes you an expert in the field, but much of the debate in the public domain about education is very much about people's views rather than necessarily evidence. One education policy analyst recently wrote about the triumph of intuition over evidence in recent education debates. He drew the example of the program under the Rudd and Gillard governments where students from Years 9 to 12 receive laptops which cost around $2 billion but had no measurable effect on student results.

Likewise we hear arguments about class size and whether these are important variables, even though the research shows clearly that it's not the major element in explaining student achievement. How do we encourage an evidence based discussion?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I do think we need to turn a much greater attention to evidence. Coming from a measurement perspective, having the right scales to be able to look at the data we're collecting, look at the validity and the reliability of data that we have before us, to rely and form strategic partnerships and alliances with the university sector and third party providers who do have a great deal of evidence and to link that evidence up to inform policy discussion. To me it's absolutely critical.

I look across the Department of Education and Training here at the Commonwealth level and we have a lot of data in early childhood, in the schooling sector, in the tertiary sector including VET and higher ed and international. What we need to do here is to be able to link that data and to be able to use it better to inform policy positions and options for government. So to me that's still work in progress right from the Commonwealth Department's level, right to forming strategic partnerships and alliances with universities to be able to research and help us understand what the data is telling us.

Right down at the classroom level where every teacher in every classroom should be keenly tuned in to knowing where students are at and making decisions about indeed what they need to do next based on the very best of research. I think we're really fantastic at doing a lot of research. What we aren't good at is turning research into practice and being very clear about what it is that teachers need to do differently as a result of that research.

Glyn Davis
I would like to pursue that a little further if I may Michelle. A recent Australian Centre for Education research report found and I'm quoting here, "levels of national expenditure on schools are generally not correlated with measures of student performance". That is it isn't true that the more money you spend the better outcomes you get necessarily. That report documented a case of quite a number of nations that spend less on schools but get better education outcomes than we do.

Again, how do we pursue evidence like that? How do we take it down to classroom level and what lessons should we be drawing as people thinking about and talking about policy?

Michelle Bruniges
Glyn, I think the OECD has a similar view where there's a diminishing rate of return after a certain amount of dollar figure goes into the education sector. I would be the first to say that we actually need and from the Commonwealth's perspective, funding will increase year on year between now and indeed the next decade for our schools.

The important bit for me is that one, funding is increasing and two, we look very hard about how we're spending those dollars. We need to understand what good intervention strategies look like for students. We need to know where they're at and this is where the measurement side comes in. We need to have good scales of achievement in literacy, numeracy and beyond. We need to look at those things that we know our students are going to need for this decade and beyond. We need to look at constructing good scales, on problem solving, on communication and on critical thinking beyond literacy and numeracy so that we do have a good sense of making sure that we are educating students for the future.

Now to be able to do that we need to ensure that our teacher professional learning and how we spend dollars in the area of teacher professional learning is actually on task. That many, many states and territories, in fact all now I think, have accredited professional learning programs which have really the heart tick to say this is an accredited professional learning program and this will add.

I think the challenge first is to - every teacher should look at what they know and what they don't know and to ensure that their professional learning and the spend of money on teacher professional learning is in a worthwhile area and not something that's based on intuition or something that might be nice to do. We need to focus our energy and effort on understanding what will improve student outcomes.

Glyn Davis
The Chief Executive of the Australian Institute for Teaching and Social Leadership, Lisa Rodgers, has said and here I quote, "when you send your kids to an Australian school effective teaching should be a certainty, not a lottery". So she's arguing that we're not seeing those sorts of consistent results that you've just talked about being achieved in our school system. What needs to be changed to do so?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think the National Professional Teaching Standards go a long way towards doing that but what you have to do is to ensure that they're operationalised or implemented in each school section. So I would absolutely support Lisa Rodgers' view that it needs to be a certainty and not a lottery. In fact that part of that, part of ensuring that we do that, is that we focus on our school leadership. That indeed performance development cycles for teachers and where their professional learning dollars are spent goes to areas of weakness that are identified. That we performance develop our staff and that we be really frank and fearless about providing good constructive feedback to teachers about where they're doing well and where they're not doing so well.

Glyn Davis
As you know much of the public debate on teacher quality focuses on ATAR results and indeed some states and territories have talked about legislating to put minimum standards here. Does ATAR provide a meaningful measure of future teacher quality and if not what should we be doing to make sure that we're attracting the very best students into teaching?

Michelle Bruniges
There are probably a range of views around the usefulness of ATAR across the country Glyn and we have to remember that an ATAR is actually a rank, it's not a mark. So some of the confusion comes with people confusing the notion of a rank. I just think it's one indicator at one point of time based on one assessment and that we have to have a holistic look at those that are entering both university, but more importantly how they're finishing their university courses.

An entry to pre-service or faculties of education across the country, there will always be a need to have a threshold or some kind of cut or mechanism to work out who gets in and who doesn't. The most important thing for me is the quality of the course once they're in the universities and indeed once they've finished their university course. That they are work ready, they're ready to teach, they're on top of the latest and well equipped to support students in all diverse contexts across Australia.

Glyn Davis
How do you respond to arguments about initial teacher training being best as a graduate entry rather than undergraduate?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, I think there's a mixed mode. Finland requires the completion of a master's degree. We've all heard of Finland doing that. I think we've got to look to the future. I think our system has served us relatively well in the past but the future is very, very different for both students and teachers, just purely from the introduction of IT.

I actually think we need a mixed response to that. We need to be able to continually support teachers both at the undergraduate and the graduate level to ensure that, you know, it is a fact of lifelong learning these days.

You can't walk into a classroom today and I left probably over 10 years ago and I wouldn't deem to profess that at the moment with changes in curriculum, changes in IT, changes in pedagogical practice, that I would be up to speed. I think everyone needs to realise that you need a combination of both the undergraduate and graduate.

Glyn Davis
Let's turn to Gonski 2.0 and the argument for needs based funding. You voiced very strong support in favour of this plan. Why so?

Michelle Bruniges
Simply because I think as a teacher, coming from a strong teacher background, I know what it's like to teach students of all different characteristics. Simply put, some students need more support than others on entry to school and during the school. So needs based funding is an incredibly important principle that I think enables resources to be allocated to schools with a view in mind of those student's needs.

Glyn Davis
So why the controversy then? I think most people would agree that needs based funding makes lots of sense. Why has this proposal sparked such weighted debate?

Michelle Bruniges
In my view, having operationalised a needs based funding model in New South Wales in my previous role, that was the way we allocated resources to schools although different systems make different kinds of decisions on how they do it. From the Commonwealth's perspective we've put in a needs based funding and that's how we will allocate that funding based on six loadings. The loadings of the size of the school, based on the location of the school, the low SES measure, English language proficiency, students with a disability and whether or not you're an Aboriginal or Torres-Strait Islander.

So we will calculate the amount of money, the cheque that will go to the system based on those six loadings and based on that needs based formula. There's a lot of research behind each of those six loadings Glyn. I think they're absolutely justifiable. We know currently there's some discussion and debate around the SES and the calculation of SES and the new National School's Resourcing Board will indeed undertake a review of the SES. I think that's probably the variable that's most, or the loading, that's indeed most under contention at the moment.

Glyn Davis
I think that's so. Any sense of when that report will be received?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, they're up and running at the moment, the National Schools Resourcing Board, so it's really their remit. As soon as possibly hopefully. They need to do the work, they need to do the technical work and they need to look at providing recommendations to government. So that will happen next year, during next year.

Glyn Davis
You mentioned the six measures and one of those is about Indigenous students. Here the evidence is pretty stark. The PISA assessment show that the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous hasn't changed certainly over the last five years. An Indigenous 15 year old remains approximately two and a half years behind their non-Indigenous peers in schooling.

How will Gonski 2.0 and the needs based funding address that very significant deficiency?

Michelle Bruniges
There's an enormous gap and I don't think there's anyone that's not concerned about that gap. In my previous role I headed Aboriginal Affairs for five years in the state of New South Wales. One of the greatest lessons that I learnt from those five years in working closely with different Aboriginal communities across New South Wales is to be able to do things in co-partnership and co-design with communities.

I think that we would better build momentum in some of those communities and better outcomes for Aboriginal students if in fact we underpinned the work of community and we worked in co-design ways with communities to understand what would come first.

I can give you an example, one that I've quoted before. I worked in the community of Walgett in Western New South Wales and indeed there was an attendance problem with those children getting to school. When we spent time within that community we needed to be able to build a road from Gingie Mission, which is about 14 kilometres out of town, so that the bus got down that road to get the children to come to school.

Now their attendance was really poor when it was raining because the bus couldn't get down the road. One of the first things we did was, using Education budget, we actually built a road so the bus could get down the road.

Now that's not going to be all and end all but that's just an example of being very familiar with what's on the ground in particular communities. Listening and learning from community and then underpinning the work and putting things in a scope and sequence to ensure that the outcomes are reached.

Glyn Davis
Did school attendance change in Walgett?

Michelle Bruniges
Yes it did. Yes it did. Yes it did. I haven't checked back in the last 18 months but we certainly had a change. There were lots of other things that we did with community out there and at least it gave access to be able to get to school. It wasn't the intention of not getting to school, it was the fact that in some periods there was no mechanism of transport of getting to school.

Glyn Davis
I'd like to draw on your experience in New South Wales for a minute to talk about Federal state relations. You've run the ACT and New South Wales Departments of Education and then last year you were appointed as Secretary of the Federal Education Department. That means you've in effect sat on both sides of the table of the negotiations between state and Commonwealth over education policy. It's often said that where you stand depends on where you sit, so how has your perspective changed as you've moved from the state and territory perspective to the Commonwealth perspective?

Michelle Bruniges
What a great privilege it's been to have been in a position of leadership in the smallest jurisdiction of the country and indeed the largest one and the great privilege of coming to the Commonwealth. I think the insights that I've gained from, as you've put it, working on both sides have been really a defining part of my thinking today. I've been really grateful for the opportunity to work very close and hand in hand with community and understand some of the issues.

I hope that I've brought that to the Commonwealth perspective which is a little bit distanced in the education setting from, example, in the needs of schools. I'm meeting states and territories who run schools, not the Commonwealth, but I've certainly drawn many a time on my invaluable experiences from both working in the ACT Government and indeed the New South Wales Government in bringing that experience and depth of knowledge to the Commonwealth.

From the Commonwealth's perspective I'll often say to my staff, when was the last time you were at a childcare centre? When was the last time you visited a school? When was the last time you were in a university? When was the last time you've been in a registered training organisation to ensure that you're in sync, so that when you're providing the best possible policy advice to the government of the day that you have a reach and a scope and depth and it's not just theoretical but it's based on the practicalities of what's happening in each of those settings.

Glyn Davis
As you will recall from your time in the states and the ACT, not everyone at that level has an entirely positive view of the Commonwealth's role in education. You talked about the Commonwealth being a little distant from schools. Professor Brian Caldwell was a little less generous. He described increased Commonwealth involvement in schools as a command and control model of public policy where and I quote, "states must adhere to an array of terms and conditions in order to receive funds".

That's a critique you will have heard often at the state level. When you explain now to your former colleagues around the Commonwealth's role in a Federal education system and the role indeed of education in a federation, how do you frame it?

Michelle Bruniges
Well I think it's important to recognise that there's got to be the best of both worlds and they can come together. You've got to have flexibility within a framework. The Commonwealth is really in a position of handing out tax payer's dollars. I have no qualms in saying states and territories have to be accountable for the receipt of Commonwealth dollars and tax payers and indeed their own state dollars. I would hope that we can work in partnership. You're not going to get universal practice right across this country in all states and territories.

There are some things that the Commonwealth, from research and evidence, will want to put in place and there's got to be some flexibilities where the state environment has to be considered as we go forward and negotiate those agreements. So I would hope that in the next state Commonwealth agreement, which will happen in the schools area next year, that we're able to bring the best of both worlds together to ensure the very best for the next generation of students in our system.

Glyn Davis
Are there things the Commonwealth could do to include the profession - teachers, school leaders, at the policy table?

Michelle Bruniges
Absolutely and we have a number of forums and stakeholder meetings at the Commonwealth. I'd like to increase those. In fact one of the ones that I've instituted this year is with our Indigenous education consultative committees from across Australia. These are people who have a very strong Indigenous education voice in each of the states and territories. I've instigated bringing them together to really both start hopefully a long term strategic partnership with Indigenous education consultative groups to be able to ensure that one, we're exchanging information, that we're sharing and that we're listening to the learnings that they have in order to form a policy.

So that happens. I'm sure that from my state and territory days that indeed that happens at the local level. I don't know a Minister of Education in the state or territory who doesn't meet with their key stakeholder groups pre to coming to ministerial council meetings. We meet at the Commonwealth with our national stakeholder groups, whether that be parent groups, whether indeed that be principal groups. So it's got to be a combination of both Glyn.

Glyn Davis
I'd like to turn just briefly to post school education. I recognise that responsibility here crosses a number of Commonwealth Departments. It isn't all within the Department of Education. There have been a number of quite startling reports and statistics recently. For example, a recent report that says only 70 per cent of graduates are employed in full-time work which is the lowest level since records began in 1982. Of course a lot of public concern around the relative attractiveness of a university education versus going to vocational education. This was picked up most recently in the Productivity Commission Report on Shifting the Dial.

How do we think through the total post school system? How do we make that policy for VET matches policy for universities, matches policy for schools and speaks in a sort of integrated way to ambitions for a great education system?

Michelle Bruniges
That's a very good question Glyn and I think looking back in the past we probably worked in very much a siloed way in each of those areas. It's only probably more recently with things not going so good, for example, the VET fee help scheme and looking at careers advice for those in the schooling sector, that we've recognised that we have to have a much more integrated policy.

On the question of graduate employment and graduates, I think the data and if I'm right the ABS data has always shown for over decades that graduates are better off in the labour market than non-graduates.

Glyn Davis
Indeed.

Michelle Bruniges
I think indeed they've had lower unemployment rates at all time, just demonstrating how important higher education remains a really good sound investment. So I think we have to be careful and go back to our evidence base. What does the evidence base tell us? On the VET side I think we need to do better. We've gone through a really difficult time in the vocational education and now we're in a position to really look at that and rebuild it.

I think there is merit in us considering what advice that students get in the senior years in schooling and indeed we've been working with key stakeholders outside the department and outside government on how do we get good career advice to students with up and coming choices that they have to make. I think it works much more like an ecosystem. When I think about the future we've got to think ecosystem. We can't think linear, we can't think silo.

We must think in a much, much different way, a networked way, to ensure that at different points in time people have access to high quality courses that enable them to be able to change employments, to be able to maximise their personal and professional potential across the sectors and beyond school across both higher ed and VET.

Glyn Davis
Recently Dr Andrew Charlton came on The Policy Shop and talked about automation and its consequences. Arguing that over the next 30 years almost every job in Australia will be affected by automation. This goes to the point you just made. How does government or business or education providers think through future employment and therefore appropriate training if our aim is to get people into employment?

Of course that's by no means the only aim of education. How do we do so when the background is changing so quickly and none of us can be certain about future professions?

Michelle Bruniges
Well I think it's the old saying, the only thing that's certain is uncertainty for us all. In response to artificial intelligence, I think in the replacement of jobs, I think some of that what we have to balance that with is the new types of jobs that will be created. I mean we really have to turn our minds to thinking about what are the replacement functions of artificial intelligence versus what are the augmentation functions and how will that change in the nature and distribution of work in any particular area.

I was really privileged to go to Singapore most recently and was privy to what they call as the industry transformation maps where they look at one year, three year and five years out. They're looking at the rate of automation on particular industries. I think they have 23 industry transformation maps. Then they're looking at where governments incentivise and what decisions they make on both the augmentation and replacement functions.

So I think there's a lot in it. We can't have the pendulums all swing to doom and gloom. It's simply not doom and gloom. We have to well equip people for the nature and type of jobs that could be quite different to the ones that they're doing now.

Glyn Davis
Indeed. So under the demand driven system for the higher education system effectively the labour market supply is determined by the aggregate decisions of 18 year olds as they choose their course of study. I'm just again interested in what role for policy, what role for government, in trying to think about supply here.

Interviewee: Again, a very good question Glyn. I think there is a role for government. There's a role for all stakeholders to really start thinking about those choices of 18 year olds. As I said, the careers strategy, people are going to change careers so many times. You might start out at X and move to Y. We all collectively should be thinking about what levers we can use, what incentives we use and what are the key drivers we use to make sure that we have high quality sustainable work placements for students in both higher ed and vocational education training.

Glyn Davis
Just finally a question on universities. There's been a debate around funding for universities and I won't ask you to comment on that, but I will observe that Australian universities rely heavily on international students and therefore on international rankings to drive that $22.4 billion in education earnings in Australia each year. How much should government policy focus on the export market and how much should it be about domestic provision?

Michelle Bruniges
Look, again a really tough question. I mean I'm a strong believer that we have to put diversity in our university sector. Having a one size fits all in universities of past all looking the same and all delivering the same I think is a problem to the type of disruption that we're about to face.

I think looking at both the diversity of international students coming into the country too, looking at education as an export, I think we're the third greatest export and some wonderful work being done by universities collectively offshore. Thinking about joint partnerships which I know universities are doing. There's strategic partnerships with international universities. All of those things.

We need to keep an eye on international and we need to first and foremost, what are our domestic provisions for our students in this country, but not to drop the ball and not forget the importance of our international. Purely because our third greatest export is education. If one was to predict the future you would say that education is going to make so many things more sustainable and for me as an educator I put it front and centre of any policy discussion.

Glyn Davis
Nicely put and indeed it takes me to our last question which is to ask you, what gives you the greatest optimism about education? What makes it worth your while spending your life in this field?

Michelle Bruniges
I think purely because I know and believe in what a difference education can make to the life opportunities and choices of individuals. I stand by that. From my own career I've made a deliberate choice to remain in education and while I have done other things in larger portfolios in addition to education it's a fundamental driver, fundamental right of all Australians, to have a good quality education.

I just think that that's the future, the next generations, to have a good educated society that highly values education is exactly where we want to be.

Glyn Davis
Thank you. It's been a great pleasure today to talk to the Secretary of the Australian Department of Education and Training, Dr Michelle Bruniges. Michelle, thank you.

Michelle Bruniges
Thank you so much.

Glyn Davis
Thank you for listening to The Policy Shop.

Voicover
This episode of The Policy Shop is produced by Eoin Hahessy and Ruby Schwartz. Research by David Threlfall. Audio engineering is by Gavin Nebauer. The Policy Shop is licensed under Creative Commons.

Copyright the University of Melbourne, 2017.