Rudd Releases Labor's Education Directions Paper But Policy Specifics Remain to be Promulgated. (January 23, 2007)

    This afternoon the Leader of the federal Labor opposition, Kevin Rudd at The University of Melbourne addressed the Melbourne Education Research Institute.

In his opening remarks he told his audience, "If the 19th century was driven by an industrial revolution, and the 20th century by a technological revolution, what is needed for the 21st century is an education revolution... Today I am launching a New Directions Paper about the central role of education in our country’s long-term economic future. It is about preparing Australia for the economic challenges of the future through greater investment in our most important resource, human capital.

    "I am... here... to state a clear-cut vision for Australia for the new century - to become the best educated country, the most skilled economy and the best trained workforce in the world."

Following a cataloguing of the past benefits of federal Labor rule, Mr Rudd went on to say, "The research and evidence shows that the best way to boost productivity is to invest in human capital.

 This is why education is the pathway to prosperity. The link between long term prosperity, productivity growth and human capital investment couldn’t be clearer from the extensive research that economists have been undertaking around the world in recent decades. The research demonstrates strong links between levels of education, levels of earnings and levels of productivity... the evidence invariably shows that more educated economies are wealthier economies. And it is true for social outcomes as well. Evidence shows that investing in education builds higher levels of civic engagement (or social capital), lower levels of crime and less social disadvantage."

And regarding the areas of neglect the federal parliamentary Labor leader cited:

• A decade of underinvestment
  Over the past decade, Australia has suffered from a chronic underinvestment in education from our national government.

• Early childhood
  In early childhood education, our three and four year olds are not getting the level of education they need...

• Schools
  The Dusseldorp Skills Forum say that nearly 30 per cent of school leavers are neither fully engaged in learning or work. Australia can do better.

• Skills and vocational education
  We are all aware of the crippling skills shortages in vital trades... It is beyond belief that funding for post-secondary education is lower in real terms than it was in Labor’s last year in office in 1996.

• Universities
  But arguably the greatest neglect during the Howard years has been in the universities sector... OECD figures show that since 1995, our public investment in tertiary education has gone backwards by 7 per cent while other OECD countries have, on average, increased their funding by 48 per cent.

• Research
  In research and innovation we’re also falling behind.
       Despite numerous warning bells rung from the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee and others, few of our universities rank high on international comparative scales and our research and development investment ranks around 25 per cent below the OECD average. Once again, Australia can do better. And Australia must do better.

Mr Rudd then made the following promises, "If I am elected to lead the next government of Australia, it will not be a government of incumbency for incumbency’s sake. There’s no time for that. There’s no time left for short-term political fixes. The long-term challenges we face – on the economy, on education, on climate change, on ending the blame game - are far too great for that... It is time to invest in our future – and there is no better place to start than by investing in the education of our children. The time has come for this nation to bring about an education revolution."

The 30 page Education Direction paper itself, The Australian economy needs an education revolution: New Directions Paper on the critical link between long term prosperity, productivity growth and human capital investment gives statistical detail to the short comings of investment in education, and research and development during the past 10 years but does not delineate what Labor's policies will be to rectify the problems. But it does promise that "Fiscal policy under a Labor Government will be guided by Labor’s Budget Rules, which state that
Labor will keep the budget in surplus, on average, over the course of the economic cycle. Labor will not increase taxation as a share of GDP, delivering budget surpluses through disciplined spending not higher taxation."

It is legitimate to ask what means Labor will employ to energise the vehicles it will employ to realise its promises and to list the chapter, verse and timeframe to overcome the degradation to allow the "education revolution" to be more than an empty slogan.

Likewise it's legitimate to ponder if public support for research and education in Australia could really be worse under federal Labor.