school management
The emphasis on ‘ skills ’ … is too narrowly defined to allow for a full range of human flourishing .
The skill of the self
Educating for purpose in the world .
By Shane Giles
Australia ’ s resilience through the Covid-19 pandemic relied on the power of its digital infrastructure and the ability of citizens to engage in new ways . Schools and teachers stood at the forefront of the challenge , innovating at short notice for remote learning while maintaining the very human connections required for young people to learn and thrive .
The Commonwealth of Australia ’ s Digital Economy Strategy 2022 Update recognises the importance that digital engagement plays now and into the future , identifying skills and inclusion as key elements in ensuring Australians have access to the benefits of digital economies .
Essential to success for Australians is the building of digital capabilities , which present as undefined in the strategy , but appear to be synonymous with skills .
Writing in the Times Higher Education on May 6 this year ,
Gavin Moodie explores education ’ s preoccupation with skills development in students . He argues that human capital theory has been driving a skills agenda since the 1960s in the belief that increased education makes workers more productive .
While skills education has become a part of educational orthodoxy – embedded in the Australian Curriculum general capabilities and defining features of Vocational Education and Training ( VET ) competencies – Moodie questions the overall effect of conceptually reductive thinking that leads students to believe that the right skills will lead to the right job .
The Melbourne Declaration still drives Australian educational frameworks with its two goals that Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence , and that Australian students become successful learners , confident and creative individuals , and active informed citizens .
The emphasis on ‘ skills ’, while presenting a common-sense conclusion for schools , is too narrowly defined to allow for a full range of human flourishing as an outcome of schooling .
Educational philosopher Gert J . J . Biesta proposes three purposes for schooling : qualification , socialisation and subjectification . Skills education runs successfully toward qualification , producing focused outcomes for specific credentials , presumably , leading to tasks and employment .
What is less clear is the way that overly focused schooling allows for students to become socialised for functioning within the existing and future social order for the benefit of society . Alarmingly though , most marginalised is a sense of subjectification in which individuals come to fully realise themselves as idiosyncratic individuals who exist as distinct and separate from their functions within the national or global economy .
Policy positions such as the Digital Economy Strategy 2022 Update offer clear , common-sense positions that are difficult to refute , but as educators concerned with the impact and importance of Melbourne Declaration goals , a critically attuned eye is required to see beyond simple capabilities or ‘ skills ’.
Teacher innovation at the beginning of the pandemic was not simply because teachers were skilled . Teachers drove the educational change because they knew what was at stake for young learners . The innovation arose from an abundance of goodwill , focused effort , and expenditure of tons of social capital .
Teachers worked together as motivated individuals in common cause for the common good . The pivot point unleashed teacher agency and empathy of the kind that can only come from subjective responses to the world .
It was the kind of purpose that we model to students to inspire young people to know and act upon the idiosyncrasies in themselves . ■
Shane Giles is the Principal of Lumen Christi Catholic College in Pambula , NSW . educationreview . com . au | 21