Australian Education – the dumbest fisherman in the world.

Perhaps the best way for me to explain the lesson in our country’s continuing slide into educational oblivion is the way we’d explain it to one of our early childhood students - as a story.

After all, Einstein said that “You don’t really understand it unless you can explain it to a six-year-old”.

So kids, the title of our story today is “Australia – the dumbest fisherman in the world”.

Australia is out ocean fishing one bright sunny day with some other boats. Let’s call these boats the other 35 OECD countries.

But after a full day of fishing, dark clouds are appearing on the horizon. The storm is called Cyclone PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment). Some clever boats see the menace descending upon them and conclude that their day of fishing is clearly done.

China is away quickly, but let’s be honest - when it comes to any sport to do with water, they have rather the habit of cheating. By only testing their students in major cities and excluding their rural and disadvantaged students the Chinese results are more than a little skewed.

However, something curious is going on with countries who do have similar social, ethnic, governmental and economical features to us. Their boats have light and inexpensive anchors in the water and they swiftly pull them in and rev up the engines.

Children, we might call these anchors private school systems.

In Canada (and let’s face it, we’re always getting confused with Canada at OECD meetings such are our striking commonalities) the anchor of their private system represents fewer than 7% of its students and in Estonia (umm … sorry … Estonia?!) that figure sits around 3%.

A zippy 20-minute boat ride from Estonia finds you in Finland, a country with close to zero students in private schools.

All three of these countries are ahead of the storm and out of sight of Australia before Australia even pulls his fishing line into the boat. 

Hmm. Children, what do you think these countries spend their money on if they aren’t investing in enormous, cumbersome and expensive anchors? Well, they build faster boats by investing in equity as a fundamental educative purpose, they trust their teachers through providing the autonomy to make decisions themselves and they refuse to allow precious taxpayer funds to be wasted on things that slow the boat down. 

That would include the expensive freeway billboards and flashy facilities that our private schools so adore but do nothing to improve educational outcomes.

If John Bertrand and Ben Lexcen were planning our education system the way they planned our assault on the 1983 America’s Cup, they’d implore us to start asking, as they so famously did, “Does it make the boat go faster?” before Australia makes even one more decision about its boat.

With all that in mind, you’d think that the wise thing for Australia to do would be to pull its anchor into the boat and get the hell out of there, wouldn’t you kids? But no, Australia doesn’t see it that way. Australia sees no value in following the example of schools that are way out in front when it comes to improving education.

And anyway, with Australia’s bulging private school anchor weighing a whopping 34% of our students, pulling that thing into the boat seems like a whole lot of hard work.

Australia prefers to examine the tactics of countries who are struggling just as badly as we are. Within eyeshot, we can see the UK, with its fat and expensive standardised testing regimes that prop up educational companies seeking to gorge huge profits from schools who we tell are failing, but who really just cater for the most disadvantaged students. 

Australia sees the US too.  They seem to have some nice stories about selective charter schools, founded by unqualified celebrities. Maybe we could try that. What could go wrong?

Lightning crashes and the first drops of rain land on our boat. What are we going to do, children?

Well, Australia - let’s call him captain and Education Minister Dan Tehan - tells us  he has a plan. Captain Tehan says we just need a heavier anchor. We can weigh down our anchor with $4.6billion just like that old salt Scott Morrison did prior to the last election when private Catholic Schools threw a tantrum over his pesky “needs based” Gonski blitherings.

I mean, can you imagine focusing on what our kids need? It’s absurd! So Australia thinks anyway.

That rain is getting heavier now. This PISA is going to do some serious damage. I really hope that anchor can keep us exactly where we are, thinks Australia.

And he’s right, children – it will.

Australia wonders if anyone remembered to bring a bucket.