Why Equity?

The Education Equity Alliance aims to ensure that all students, especially those from low-socioeconomic, vulnerable and diverse backgrounds, are able to achieve excellent and equitable learning outcomes.

Currently, there is a significant gap in the outcomes of these student cohorts, with considerable implications for their health, wellbeing and life outcomes.

What do we mean by equity?

We often talk about 'equity' in really broad terms. For instance, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration describes a vision "for a world class education system that encourages and supports every student to be the very best they can be, no matter where they live or what kinds of challenges they face".

But we need to dig deeper than this and be more specific about what we are working towards. Academic and education leader Pasi Sahlberg argues for a definition and understanding of equity that has two dimensions.

The first is the "individual dimension" of equity in education: that "all children receive an education that enables them to fully participate in adult society in a way of their choosing". Sahlberg also describes this ensuring that our education system provides all students with an "adequate" standard of education.

The second is the "social dimension" of equity in education: that "students from different social groups achieve similar average outcomes, and a similar distribution of outcomes". This second dimension makes clear that the goal is not for all students to achieve at the same level. As Sahlberg explains, "equitable education would set up the expectation that Indigenous, socio-economically disadvantaged, rural and remote students achieve similar education outcomes to affluent students".

How equitable is Australia's education system?

The Productivity Commissions's 2023 Review of the National School Reform Agreement found that the Federal and State Governments had so far "failed to demonstrate that they are achieving the agreed outcomes for students from the priority equity cohorts. Performance against most of the national outcomes measures in the NSRA (for which data are available) has declined for these students" (p. 24).

Of significant concern, we have no evidence that we are closing the gap or turning it around. The Productivity Commission found that "rather than narrowing, the gap in learning widens as students progress through their schooling". Take for instance the numeracy NAPLAN scores for students from two of the equity cohort:

(Source: Productivity Commission, 2023, p. 24)

Why does equity matter?

How equitable our education system is has a number of important implications for our students, our system as a whole, and our society. Given the demonstrable correlation between student background and academic outcomes, there are clear challenges to some students being able to achieve their potential. As the Productivity Commission report states, "to achieve its ambitious objective of a high quality, high equity education system, parties will need to systematically identify and address the barriers facing students from priority equity cohorts" (p. 25).

It is clear that the barriers that students from priority cohorts can face not only can limit the academic outcomes they achieve, but can also lead to them disengaging from education much earlier than their peers from other backgrounds. For instance, ABS data from 2022 indicates that only 59% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students were retained between Year 7 and Year 12. This is compared to 83% of all students.

The Education Equity Alliance is particularly concerned with the long-term implications of this inequity for the health, wellbeing and life outcomes of the students impacted. For instance, in their study Educational opportunity in Australia 2020: Who succeeds and who misses out?, Stephen Lamb et al found that, based on the 2019 population:

29.7% of 24 year olds were not engaged in full-time education, training or work.
These rates varied significantly based on socioeconomic background: 82% of high SES young people compared to 50.8% of low SES young people.

Of most concern was the finding that 32% of 24 year olds from the most disadvantaged SES decile were not engaged in any for of employment, education or training. This is compared to 6.6% of 24 year olds from the most advantaged SES decile.

Critically, there are clear links between educational attainment and employment on mental and physical health, living in poverty, welfare dependency, and engagement with the criminal justice system, among other things.