Issues and Opportunities The Commission should: Consider an independent body to commission, conduct, report on and promote rigorous evaluations of school programs in the form of a centre similar to those emerging in other countries. ‘what works’ Consider requiring programs seeking government funding to submit themselves to an independent evaluation which is then published and freely available, thereby supporting a culture and standard of transparent, non-partisan evidence generation. Recognise the need for investment in knowledge translation and mobilisation through support for and models and subject proposed approaches to ‘implementation science’ ‘improvement science’ equally rigorous evaluations of impact and outcomes. Institutions, data governance and prioritising reform The Commission should: Give priority to those reforms that are expected to have the highest impact on the quality of teaching in the classroom Make recommendations to fill the research gap of experimental evidence on the learning impact of programs and approaches being used in schools Make recommendations to fill the gap of evidence engagement and adoption by ‘research use’ frontline professionals Introduction The importance of this Inquiry Social Ventures Australia welcomes this Inquiry and the opportunity it creates for a comprehensive review of how Australia can a more robust national education evidence base for effective policy and “create program development to meet our national education objectives and lift our national We are productivity.” also encouraged that the terms of reference recognises the importance of identifying to “opportunities collectively invest further, and how we can improve the effectiveness of our investment through a more streamlined, comprehensive and collaborative national approach”. Australia has had clear objectives for educational outcomes for a considerable length of time, including the Melbourne Declaration Goals that have been in place since 2008. These goals have been supported by annual national testing of school students under the NAP program, with national, state and territory NAPLAN results reported publicly through My School website since 2008. And this has been supplemented by international testing through PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS since 2000. Over this same period of time Australia has considerably increased the total funding made available to school education to achieve our educational goals. Despite this focus and increased funding support, the data on student outcomes suggests that Australian performance has not improved significantly. On the whole, NAPLAN data has been students’ academic
Issues and Opportunities The Commission should: Consider an independent body to commission, conduct, report on and promote rigorous evaluations of school programs in the form of a ‘what works’ centre similar to those emerging in other countries. Consider requiring programs seeking government funding to submit themselves to an independent evaluation which is then published and freely available, thereby supporting a culture and standard of transparent, non-partisan evidence generation. Recognise the need for investment in knowledge translation and mobilisation through support for ‘implementation science’ and ‘improvement science’ models and subject proposed approaches to equally rigorous evaluations of impact and outcomes. Institutions, data governance and prioritising reform The Commission should: Give priority to those reforms that are expected to have the highest impact on the quality of teaching in the classroom Make recommendations to fill the research gap of experimental evidence on the learning impact of programs and approaches being used in schools Make recommendations to fill the ‘research use’ gap of evidence engagement and adoption by frontline professionals Introduction The importance of this Inquiry Social Ventures Australia welcomes this Inquiry and the opportunity it creates for a comprehensive review of how Australia can “create a more robust national education evidence base for effective policy and program development to meet our national education objectives and lift our national productivity.” We are also encouraged that the terms of reference recognises the importance of identifying “opportunities to collectively invest further, and how we can improve the effectiveness of our investment through a more streamlined, comprehensive and collaborative national approach”. Australia has had clear objectives for educational outcomes for a considerable length of time, including the Melbourne Declaration Goals that have been in place since 2008. These goals have been supported by annual national testing of school students under the NAP program, with national, state and territory NAPLAN results reported publicly through My School website since 2008. And this has been supplemented by international testing through PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS since 2000. Over this same period of time Australia has considerably increased the total funding made available to school education to achieve our educational goals. Despite this focus and increased funding support, the data on student outcomes suggests that Australian students’ academic performance has not improved significantly. On the whole, NAPLAN data has been
sub059-education-evidence.docx