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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2586 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

The paper claims that we will be able to make some points of comparison with other systems. I am afraid that my answer to that is: So what? If we find out that our children can read better than those in Elizabeth or read better than those in Brunswick or read better than those in Wattie Creek, so what? At the end of this testing program, we will be able to rank all the million or so children in the whole of Australia, from best reader in Australia to worst reader in Australia. So what? This means absolutely nothing in terms of learning outcomes for children. It will provide us with a set of statistical data which is relevant to one day, to one test at one time, and that is all. That is fine, but let us not get excited about one test on one day for one cohort of students. In the national debate people are querying the value of the testing. On balance, I have no problem with the actual testing being done, but let us not get terribly excited about what the impact of it will be.

I find disquieting the claims made in this paper that somehow these tests will assist our teachers. I fear that this reflects a lack of experience and understanding of how our systems actually work. I challenge the Minister to go to any high school in the ACT and ask the English teacher - it would not apply to every teacher, so let me not exaggerate - or to any primary school and ask any teacher there, "Who has literacy and numeracy problems in this class? How would you rank these kids from top to bottom?". I guarantee that those primary teachers and those English teachers are well aware of that information.

The Minister claims that testing will validate other data. It probably will. So what? The fact is that our teachers, our administrators and our parents are well aware of the problems facing students in their schools. I do not think that this proposal should be seen as any sort of solution, or even assistance, to the practical realities that are facing us in our schools today. That is what I want to challenge the Minister to have a look at. He should not get caught up with the push for national testing or with the obvious excitement of some administrators about having a better overall picture of the realities of our classrooms.

The paper makes great claims about moving to outcomes-based education. I defy anyone to tell me what else education is. It is one of the very few activities regularly administered by government that are completely outcome oriented. There is no other thing to be in school. If you are in Year 1, you are outcome oriented, because you are trying to get to Year 2. If you are in Year 3, the outcome orientation is trying to get to Year 4. There is a linear progression of learning within the school system and the system is tested publicly at the end of the process. I can think of no other government activity where outcomes are so thoroughly scrutinised. In our system just about everyone goes through to Year 12, so we are not missing many. The entire spectrum - I am talking about government activity in education, but the same applies to non-government activity as well - is outcome oriented. The outcome orientation applies to each year. No child can escape the outcome orientation of the education system. I find this new jargon very disturbing. It just clouds the issue. It sounds wonderful. I do not know what the reverse of outcome orientation in education is. I cannot think of an appropriate antonym to use. There is no way to go through education other than by being outcome oriented.

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