The ACT is halfway through its future of education strategy, but what has it really achieved?
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The 10-year strategy was touted as the way forward for the territory to ensure every student reaches their potential in an ever-changing world.
The strategy is heavy on motherhood statements about ensuring every child is given the opportunity to succeed, that they are treated as individuals and that teachers are valued.
But the strategy is light on actual guidance on how to lift educational achievement.
Sure, it's great to have an equity fund to help families who are struggling with education expenses.
Free Chromebooks have no-doubt assisted public school students, especially during remote learning.
The affiliation with the University of Canberra is essential to making sure pre-service teachers are equipped for their future workplaces.
Opening up free three-year-old preschool places will make a tangible difference in child development.
These equity initiatives are important, but what about the actual teaching that is happening in classrooms?
The strategy talks a lot about personalised learning. How does a teacher achieve this when they are the one trained professional in a classroom of 25 to 30 students?
The strategy talks about students taking responsibility for their learning and having a say in what they learn.
How about ensuring that every student has the fundamental literacy and numeracy skills they need and has tasks scaffolded for them before diving into project-based learning?
This year's NAPLAN results show that one-third of ACT students were not meeting the national proficient standards for basic literacy and numeracy skills. One-third.
Educationally disadvantaged students are falling further behind in reading and numeracy compared to their peers whose parents attended university.
The first school to be built under the future of education strategy recently underwent a special purpose review which found many students did not have the foundational skills to be able to engage in inquiry learning.
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I've spoken to parents who have had to fork out thousands for private tutoring to ensure their child doesn't fall behind.
Some have even taken the drastic measure of homeschooling to give them the support they need when their school was not offering evidence-based instruction in reading.
True equity will be achieved when every child reaches those literacy and numeracy benchmarks, regardless of whether their parents went to university or not.
It's not a mystery as to how to do this.
There's a large, rich body of evidence from cognitive science which tells us how the brain learns best.
The next five years of the ACT's future of education strategy is a chance to put some concrete targets in place to lift student outcomes.
As the young Canberra citizen of the year Connor Winfield put it succinctly in his speech to the future of education summit on Friday: "The next generation is here, so we need to stop talking about what we're going to do for them and actually do it."
![ACT's future of education strategy lacks a focus on evidence-based teaching practices. Picture by Shutterstock ACT's future of education strategy lacks a focus on evidence-based teaching practices. Picture by Shutterstock](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/33pRA5ArzT57tWtt8VHHenS/be1238aa-538c-43b5-9e8b-54dc1bb84463.jpg/r0_335_4189_2690_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
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