EL DEBATE SOBRE EL INICIO DE LA VIDA LA TEORÍA DE LA FECUNDACIÓN Y LA

By international and national standards Victoria provides a highly dynamic education and training context (Keating and Robinson 2003); one that has out- performed the national average on many measures of educational and labour market participation (Long 2005). It is characterised by a high degree of devolution in the compulsory and post compulsory education sectors, the highest level of private schooling in Australia, innovative TAFE18 and university arrangements as well as

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the largest and most diverse adult and community education (ACE) sector in Australia (Connors 2000; Keating and Robinson 2003). It is also ‘departmentally’ diverse with sub-systems and separate Unions for each of the sectors of education as well as being ‘regionally’ differentiated (Connors 2000). This multi-layered departmental arrangement coupled with a highly diverse and dynamic context creates the potential for tension between the education system and its component parts at a time when multiple stakeholders are becoming involved with the education agenda (Connors 2000).

During the 1990s, in common with many other communities nationally and internationally (Kickert et al. 1997), Victorians experienced a shift away from the welfare state ideology within government coupled with the imposition of private sector management practices (Blackmore 1999, 2002). As in other sectors of government, in a context of tighter accountability and reduced resources education policy devolution was ‘reworked from the centre’ (Connors 2000, p.16): the devolution of functions shifted from curriculum to ‘administration, management and control’ (Connors 2000, p.16). As had occurred in other domains,

performativity19 supplanted paternalism as the meta-discourse which legitimised the state’s control functions (Yeatman 1994). While self-management of schools saw a range of functions and responsibilities associated with administration, accounting, employment and maintenance devolved to school principals and councils - with a resultant massive increase in related workloads - there was a conterminous return to central control of a range of curriculum and pedagogical matters relating to student assessment, a shift promoted on the basis of quality and performance (Shacklock 1998; Strathern 2000). Thus teachers and schools operated within an increasing sense of close external scrutiny (Shacklock 1998), a sense that was intensified with the introduction of the ‘Professional Recognition Program’ that, for the first time in Victorian schools, tied teacher classification, promotion and salary to a system of performance review (Directorate of School Education 1995).

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Lyotard (1984, p.44) defines performativity as ‘… the principle of optimal performance: maximising output (the information modifications obtained) and minimising input (the energy expended in the process).’ For Ball (2000) performativity is ‘a system of “terror” in Lyotard’s words, that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as a means of control, attrition and change.’ I explore this argument in the fourth Panel of this thesis within the discussion on governance of SGR LLEN.

This ‘centralised decentralisation’ placed risk management in the hands of

individuals, families and educational institutions by way of discourses of choice and local management (Blackmore 2002) at the same time a sense of ‘common good and interconnectedness’ was damaged (Connors 2000). Furthermore, the degree of centralised control ‘far outweighed’ the scope for local participation and

management meaning schools ‘remained subservient to the activities of the state’ (Thomson 1999, p.11). Funding systems placed public and private schools in competitive relationships (Blackmore 2002), a development that brought

‘widespread disquiet’ and ran counter to the co-operative practices sought in many communities (Connors 2000, p.17). In the early 1990s these shifts resulted in the closure of nearly 300 primary and secondary government schools, the loss of around 8,000 teaching positions and a massive reduction – some hundreds of millions of Australian dollars - in the education budget (Shacklock 1998). At the same time as the state social infrastructure for health and welfare was ‘hollowed out’ (Blackmore 2002, p.20) the increased flexibility for schools that self- management was to release would be supplemented through increased parental labour and funding (Blackmore 2000). As such it is little surprise that the impact of self-management appeared highly correlated to the socioeconomic standing of the area in which schools were located (Shacklock 1998).

Local responses to these developments saw increased voluntarism in communities where ‘buying in’ out-sourced services was limited by the economic constraints of a given community (Blackmore 2002). In many communities organic networks emerged as individuals and institutions came together to deal with common

problems. However, schools and other education and training providers remained in a system where funding was premised on individual student numbers within a marketised and devolved context. Schools are thus forced to behave in entrenched ways including privileging the focus on the competitive academic curriculum and tertiary entrance rankings 20 notwithstanding that 70% of students in Victoria do not move directly from school to university. In recent years both the federal and state

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The VCE results lead to what is known as the Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank or ENTER. The ENTER is a competitive, standardised and nationally portable mark that is the source of considerable media, and familial anxiety for those completing Y12, towards the end of each school year. For those intending to progress to university the ENTER is vital: universities publish the required ENTER for their programs and rank all students who have nominated the program as a preference.

government have recognised that competitive relations have undermined efforts of schools and other public agencies to engage youth in education and training that will expand their options in negotiating the ‘risk society’ (Beck 1992). It is to a brief discussion of this broader global context that I turn before moving to introduce the shift in policy that has led to the formation of LLEN.