Devolution: What The Term Currently Means
3.2 DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS OF RESPONSIVENESS
An inadequate capacity for "responsiveness" within the government school system has been cited repeatedly as the (or a) problem to be solved through devolution. As the meaning of devolution has altered over time, so too have conceptions of what counts as responsive schooling. Common threads in these may be found by concentrating on what counts as "responsive" and how is responsiveness demonstrated?
3.2.1 The Karmel Report
Karmel's focus on devolution was regarded as an admonition to bureaucrats and school principals to be more responsive to students, teachers and parents. The report's emphasis on the related value of "diversity" indicates what would count as responsive behaviour (and how this was linked to devolution):
No single pattern is necessarily the best; diversified forms of schooling are an important part of the search for solutions. Increased resources made available to the schools will not necessarily result in children either learning better or being happier in them, Better ways will not necessarily be the same for all children or for all teachers. This is an important reason for bringing responsibility back into the school and for allowing it to be exercised in ways which enable a hundred flowers to bloom rather than to wither.
(Karmel, 1973:11-12).
The system had to be more responsive to teachers, students and their parents, and responsive behaviour was seen as the exploration, enabled by devolution, of different and better ways of learning and managing schools.
3.2.2. The Functional Review Committee
The Functional Review Committee was quite explicit about responsiveness. It concluded, for example, that the Education Department's centralised structure was no longer able to adapt quickly or appropriately enough to rapid changes in the economic and social environment. In reviewing the history of the Department's recent initiatives, it concluded that while the Department had declared intentions to respond in particular directions on important issues, little real progress had been made. In keeping with the principles of Managing Change in the Public Sector, improved responsiveness was to be achieved in two ways — one for the local level and another for the system level.
Local responsiveness to the community was to be assured through "self-determining, responsible" schools. It was only at the level of the school that meaningful decisions about the educational needs of individual students could be made and programs devised which would reflect the wishes and circumstances of local school communities.
Responsiveness in the system was to be improved by closer coupling of the bureaucracy to the government. Managing Change was quite explicit about the respective roles of government and its ministers, and chief executives and other public sector officers:
The Government accepts that, in the past, blurred lines of responsibility have meant that public sector managers have been left to set policy priorities which ought to have been the subject of clearer Ministerial leadership. ... In order that Government-wide priorities are met it is necessary to ensure that public sector managers implement those policies determined by the elected Government of the day. The bulk of public sector work will remain the efficient and effective operation of routine activities. Changing priorities are, and are always likely to be, marginal in terms of the proportion of total expenditure which they represent. But though they are marginal in this sense they are crucial to the strategies and priorities of any Government. The task of public sector managers is one of working out how they can be implemented on behalf of Government within the constraints experienced by Government.
(Managing Change in the Public Sector, 1986:5).
In other words, the Government would decide the issues which required responsiveness, and the Education Department would ensure that policies were properly implemented within the budget. In formulating policy Government would call upon a range of advice from central agencies (e.g. Treasury and the Ministry of the Premier and Cabinet), ministerial advisers and other sources, including the Education Department.
In summary, the Functional Review Report's answer to the "what" and "how" of responsiveness was twofold. For the system as a whole, the "what" was "rapid social, economic and political change". The "how" consisted of government priorities implemented by efficient planning in a restructured Education Department. At the school level, the "what" was the educational needs of individual students. The "how" was programs reflecting the wishes and circumstances of local communities.
3.2.3 The Vickery Report
This identified responsiveness to change as one of the three most compelling issues affecting schools. The Report expressed concern at the Education Department's greatly-reduced curriculum capacity, due, paradoxically, to changes designed to increase responsiveness less than a decade earlier.
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The Report also identified other areas for concern which can be regarded as issues of responsiveness. Firstly it drew attention to the quality of leadership in each of the three tiers of management, and "a perceived detachment of central-office leadership from the educational agenda of schools". Secondly, there was a related concern about "top-down"
bureaucratic processes not engaging with the "grassroots" of the organisation. Thirdly, there were concerns about the operation of informal networks; the manner in which the Education Department typically responds when its policy positions are challenged; and the Departmen's capacity to deal in an open and collaborative way with issues. Fourthly, the Report questioned the priority given to maintaining certain central policies (e.g. free bus services in rural areas and class sizes) at the expense of continued decline in already dysfunctional services. Finally, it was asserted that insufficient priority was being given to the teaching and learning potential of new technologies.
The Vickery Report clearly was critical of the "what" of responsiveness in the government school system. Its description of a central office which was detached from its schools, with a closed way of dealing with issues, was reminiscent of the themes of the Karmel report. So, too, was the Report's depiction of an organisation which was somewhat detached from the society it was intended to serve - societal trends were not being reflected enough in school curriculum and technological opportunities were not being realised in practice.
The Report's answer to how the system's responsiveness could be improved was the more modern one of locating certain central office powers elsewhere. For example, it argued that curriculum responsiveness would be improved through the proposed Western Australian Schools Council and that the problem of central "detachment" from schools would be overcome by further devolution to schools and districts.
3.2.4 The Free Market Approach
In the free market approach to education, responsiveness is the raison d'etre. Schools' capacity to respond rapidly and successfully to shifts in market forces is what drives the system towards improved student performance.
The "what" of responsiveness is defined by the market forces unleashed when parents exercise free choice of schools for their children. The "how" of responsiveness resides with the considerable degree of autonomy schools will have to alter their programs in response to parental choice. The central office of a government system will remain at arm's-length once certain ground rules related to expected outcomes and public reporting of these have been established.
3.2.5 The Micro-economic Reform Approach
Here the key word is flexibility. In terms of the "what" of responsiveness, the role education should play in the nation's economy is stressed; the preparation of young people to take up positions in further education or the workforce.
The "how" of responsiveness is tied up with micro-reform of the school as a workplace.
In particular, greater flexibility in the conditions for teachers and students is emphasised.
The desired increase in flexibility, it is argued, should be sought through forms of
"bargaining" enabled by new industrial relations legislation. Devolution is a taken-for- granted assumption, although it is acknowledged that devolution of restrictive practices will do little to improve responsiveness. It is for this reason that regulatory reform is also a key strategy in this frame of reference.