policy & reform
Listen up
It’s time to start listening to the
experts in education.
By Shannon Schedlich
I
could easily style myself as an education
expert: I have the prefix in front of my
name that lends legitimacy; I run a
national organisation focused on education
research; and I’ve been an education
adviser to a minister.
Others have held themselves up as
experts with much less.
But I’m not an expert on education,
and I don’t hold myself up to be.
Don’t get me wrong: I have lots of
opinions on various areas of education.
I hold some of them very strongly. I
am more well read in this area than
the average person on the street.
But I am not an expert.
In an era where fact and opinion are
so often conflated, it is more important
than ever that we make that distinction.
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“I’ve spent years researching this
topic” can mean two totally different
things: it can be the academic who has
immersed themselves in the peer-reviewed
literature on a topic, who has studied it
from all directions, who has entered into
vigorous intellectual debates with their
contemporaries, honing their expertise;
or, in 2019, it can mean the person who
has spent hours down YouTube rabbit
holes ‘teaching’ themselves the topic of
their choice.
And in a post-truth world, it’s more
important than ever that we make the
distinction – that the experts we are
presenting in the media are genuine
experts in the fields they are speaking to.
That is what drew me to the Media
Centre for Education Research Australia
(MCERA) a couple of years ago. I was
passionate about education, and this
was an organisation that was explicitly
created to ensure that research-informed
commentary on education issues was
being reported in the mainstream media.
Why is it important to have quality
research reported in the mainstream media?
It contributes to a better-informed public
debate. And a better-informed public debate
ultimately leads to better outcomes.
Take the use of mobile phones in
schools, which has become a topic of
much discussion this year.
In June, the Victorian minister for
education, James Merlino, announced a
mobile phone ban in his state’s schools
from next year. The evidence he referenced
in his media release spoke to a study on
cyberbullying, an issue that governments of
all persuasions are rightly concerned about.
The research that banning mobile phones
in schools would impact that issue was
not referenced.
Merlino’s announcement prompted
discussion at the Education Council, with
the federal minister of education, Dan
Tehan, saying the government would bring
in international experts to consult on the
efficacy of such a ban nationally.
But the latest Excellence in Research for
Australia (ERA) national report showed that
the research being generated by the vast
majority of our institutions was at or above
world standard. We have the experts right
here in Australia.
Why look elsewhere? (I’m pleased to note
the minister has subsequently spoken with
Australian experts.)
On this occasion – as we often do –
MCERA spoke to a range of education
researchers working in this area to prepare
an expert comment. These are short
statements from experts that are distributed
to journalists that can either be used in
reporting directly, or the researchers can
be contacted by journalists to speak in
further detail.
All the experts consulted did not believe
that there exists enough evidence to
support a ban; and some went as far as to
say that they felt a ban was counterintuitive
in preparing students for a digital world.
But comments sections on news
websites and opinion pieces on the topic
suggested that Merlino’s call echoed what
a lot of Australians felt intuitively. It might
not have been informed by fact, but it was
strongly supported by gut feel.
Spending on education overall, and the
rhetoric from all levels of government,
shows that this is an area highly valued by
Australian society.
Compared to other OECD countries,
Australia’s spending on education is
relatively high (we rank 9th out of 39
reporting countries in terms of the
percentage spent on education). However,
funding for education research does not
reflect this. Education research receives
comparatively little funding from the
Australian Research Council and other
sources, both compared to other disciplines
in Australia, and compared to spending on
education research in other countries.
Part of the reason is undoubtedly
that research funding tends to go to
projects that can use data to demonstrate
outcomes. Education research does not