Padraic P. McGuinness, “Not the size of the class, but what you do with it,” The Weekend Australian, October 20-21, 1990, p. 2.

Judging by the response, direct and indirect, to my piece last week on the factors determining school achievement, there is an enormous interest and concern in the community about the performance of our schools.

The concern is shared by those researchers who are not blinded by ideology or the belief that the function of schools is to punish the most able children in the name of equality of outcomes. What this does is punish all children, since it is only the emphasis on achievement which produces an overall rise in performance.

The attempts by the Victorian Government through the new Victorian Certificate of Education to impose such notions are directly contrary to all that is known about the factors which produce good performance from schools and pupils.

Before going on, however, let me provide the references which so many people have requested. The book which summarises American research and makes proposals for reforms is: Politics, Markets and America’s Schools, by John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, published by the Brookings Institution, Washington DC (336pp. US$28.95, US$10.95 paper).

Any good bookseller should be able to order this from the US for you. It will not be affected by the British publishers’ territorial copyright, since Brookings does not sell its copyrights to UK publishers.

The article discussing it in The New Republic was published in the issue dated October 8, 1990, pp. 39-42, by James Q. Wilson, professor of management and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

One of the responses to my article came from the National Centre for Development Studies at the Australian National University, and included a copy of a working paper by David Throsby and Ken Gannicott: The quality of education in the South Pacific. (It can be obtained from Bibliotech ANUTECH Pty Ltd, GPO Box 4, Canberra 2601, for $8 which includes postage and packing.)

This paper is concerned with the same issues, the factors which produce educational achievement, especially in the context of developing countries, with special reference to Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. It cites much of the same kind of evidence brought together in the Chubb & Moe book, but also draws on the extensive experience of the World Bank in financing educational aid projects.

It is of much wider concern than the countries mentioned, since it tackles issues of successful education policies which have direct application to any area or group in poverty and with present low educational achievement. I would think much could be learned from it which would be of great help in the important area of Aboriginal education, for example, as well as that of refugee immigrant children.

Most of the paper’s conclusions are along the lines discussed last week, with some differences in emphasis.

It argues, for example, that trained teachers do make a difference — but not long periods of pre-service training. Thus a secondary teacher with a degree in say science would do better to train in schools rather than through teachers college or university education faculties. In the case of primary school teachers, it is a waste of money to go beyond good secondary school education and a minimum of teacher training, best undertaken on the job (where advice and guidance from experienced older teachers is the best form of training).

Again, the evidence that class size is not significant is cited:

It is certainly true that in very small classes (10-15 students) learning can be significantly enhanced through individual attention to the needs of students. In very large classes (say 70) discipline and monitoring of progress breaks down to the detriment of the learning process. Nevertheless, it is apparent that despite frequent assertions to the contrary by teachers and their unions, class size will not matter much for pupil achievement, provided the size of class falls within the range of about 25-50 students.

While just throwing money at schools does no good, the provision of instructional materials is important. Not computers or videos, which are largely a waste of money, but books, paper, blackboards, etc. Above all, books — both textbooks and other printed material.

You might say that provision of textbooks and a good school library are more important than virtually any other expenditures in a school. Lavish expenditure on buildings and equipment will not raise quality.

In developing countries, education especially at primary level is best carried out in the mother tongue, with the national language being taught alongside it. Children learn better in their mother tongue. This is a good reason for encouraging the teaching of Aboriginal children initially in their own language — where this is genuinely used, rather than being imposed on them.

It also suggests that immigrant children in primary school should be taught in their own languages by native speakers.

Curriculum reform will not raise quality:

Schools are institutions for imparting general skills such as reading, writing, mathematics, and scientific understanding, for teaching widely applicable skills, such as book-keeping and typing, and for inculcating general occupational skills, such as attitudes to work, punctuality and discipline.

It has been recognised for some time that diversified education, which offers a supposedly more “practical” alternative to “academic” schooling has yielded generally disappointing results, and that specific vocational skills are better developed in an environment more closely related to the eventual workplace.

Examinations are a good way of monitoring school quality, so long as they are properly designed and do not simply encourage cramming. It is a mistake to determine in advance the proportion of those who pass — a common vice in Australia, at universities as well as in school systems.

Healthy, well-fed children do better at school. This is obvious, and not a great problem in Australia — though it does suggest that additional expenditure should go on school health services rather than more teachers.

The performance of students is related to the number of hours per week or year spent in school. Increased teaching and reading time are important. This suggests that activities which eat into school time, such as excursions and days on which teachers talk to each other rather than children, should be discouraged and school terms and years should be longer rather than shorter.

The terrible thing about all this is that it suggests that just about all the educational fashions of the last 20 years, the huge increases in expenditure on education in the ‘seventies, and the activities of teachers unions have been actually harmful to the children and have had no impact at all, unless it be a negative one, on the performance of schools and the educational achievements of children. This is clearly the case both in the industrialised countries and in developing countries.

Surely we can accept the evidence, and get down to genuine improvement of the school system?