policy & reform
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is ‘balance competing priorities and stick
to long-term goals’.
“I believe it’s so important that we keep
capabilities on the agenda … throughout
the system, so that those children who
don’t necessarily have the same chances
as their peers have the opportunity to
grow in all of these areas throughout their
education,” Charlene Smith, institute policy
program director and report co-author
says. “Capabilities aren’t a given.”
Campus Review spoke with Smith to find
out more about capabilities in education.
The capable country
Government needs to do
more to cultivate capabilities in
young people, report says.
Charlene Smith interviewed by Loren Smith
C
itizens of the lucky country can
no longer rely on good fortune
for prosperity – they must rely on
capabilities. This is the preface of a new
Mitchell Institute report.
“Today the question is not if we should
seek to teach young people to be capable,
or what capabilities matter, but, given the
evidence of their importance, how best
to do this for all young Australians and
who should play a role,” The Capable
Country: Cultivating Capabilities in
Australian Education says.
Capabilities, 21st century skills, non-
cognitive skills, soft skills – call them what
you want, but rather than merely sound
off about their known importance, the
institute urged the government to do
more in acting on them, and offered eight
recommendations in this respect:
12
1. Make a strong, evidence-based case for
the value of capabilities to employers,
parents and educators.
2. Consider capabilities across the
continuum from the early years through
to post-school education.
3. Simplify existing learning continua for
the general capabilities.
4. Create clear case studies to show how
capabilities can be fostered through
education.
5. Enable professional networks to share
effective practices.
6. Draw on existing promising practices to
create guidance on the assessment of
the general capabilities.
7. Provide support for principals and
leaders to exercise instructional
leadership in the development of
capabilities.
8. Create an evidence base for all aspects
of the implementation of the general
capabilities to promote sharing,
innovation, and widespread practice
improvement.
Although every state and territory
government mandates the instruction of
capabilities in some form, “we can’t spend
another decade talking about wanting to
improve in this area – we need capabilities
prioritised in Australian education now”,
says institute director Megan O’Connell.
By education, the institute means that
which occurs before a child reaches the
preschool gates and beyond. For example,
a capability for a three-year-old is ‘notice
and understand other people’s feelings’,
while one for a young adult, aged 19–24,
CR: Given that capabilities are already
taught in syllabuses across Australia, why
is there is a need for a national government
approach to teaching them?
CS: The need for a national approach is
less about the nuts and bolts of teaching
capabilities and more about demonstrating
that Australia is committed to building
capabilities in all students across their
life’s course. It’s about making a lasting
national commitment to give assurance
to educators that if they’re undertaking
continuing professional development, or
seeking to improve their credentials in
this area, that they know it’s going to be
something the government continues
to support.
It’s really important as a nation that
we continue to be on the front foot
with capabilities, with being recognised
internationally as ahead of the game on this
through the Melbourne Declaration and the
way that general capabilities are embedded
in our national teaching framework – things
like the early youth learning framework
in the national curriculum, which already
exists at a national level.
The call’s not really about saying there
needs to be a national teaching strategy;
it’s more about needing an ongoing lasting
national commitment to doing this, to
doing it well, to giving all young Australians
the assurance that whatever school they’re
in, whatever early childhood centre they’re
in, whatever TAFE they go to, they’ll have
the opportunity to build the skills that
we know employers are going to be
demanding in the future, and that we know
are essential to getting on in our society.
To be honest, the government has done
a lot. It’s not like government’s dropped
the ball with this. I think the Australian
government at the federal level and many
of the state and territory governments
have done great work to date in