The Labor Government has promised a rethink in education policy and a better future for all children.

Though it is a truism that education is the key pathway to removing inequalities in society, it is fiction to think that everyone can be “equal” in a meaningful sense.

A series of reviews have thrown up the monumental problems undermining policy to bring equity to the education system. Minister Jason Clare acknowledges the barriers are intergenerational.

We are not born equal for a start, genetic differences in capacity (whether physical or cognitive) make some children athletically gifted and some more creative, with intellectual, spatial, mathematical, musical, inter-personal capacities that differ. Brains and bodies are wired and modifiable according to experience and training, but that plasticity does not guarantee the same destination for everyone.

The accidents of birth include poverty versus riches, parents who read and discuss ideas versus households where there is silence and repression of personal expression. The “word gap” between children of low versus higher educated mothers emerges as a gap of 17 words by six months of age, growing to a gap of 3850 words by 18 months, largely because of parental babbling and talking to a child. Some parents read more books to their children and talk more as they interact with the child, asking questions, explaining what is going on. That’s a huge advantage for early development.

Then there are institutional barriers to equitable learning.

The first is with pre-school education and childcare. All children must learn social skills, how to co-operate with others and with smaller families today, kids need to be with others of their own age to help “rub the edges off”. Play-based learning is significant in early childhood development and every form of childcare is now built around this understanding, with the old division between kinder and care as in baby-sitting gone.

Structured contact with other adults and children at kindergarten and in childcare is meant to expand learning advantage. It does for some. The recent policy scramble to improve universal access to free or subsidised childcare is to be applauded, but the quality of carers and teachers matters significantly. The ABC has recently exposed very serious problems in the business of childcare. Moreover, as the Productivity Commission reported, most of the $8.3 billion extra funding designated for childcare will go to better-off families and not necessarily improve equity of access to those who need early learning and childcare the most.

The next barrier to equity for children lies in their school education. Primary school aims to consolidate the basics of formal learning about the world, skills that will be needed, but if poor teacher quality fails to instill curiosity and the motivation to learn, these children are left behind. A crowded curriculum and disputes about the teaching of language and literacy (e.g. whole word reading compared with direct teaching and an emphasis on phonics) have meant reading skills are not acquired and children have failed to engage in the world of literature and history.

Moreover, lack of adequate funding for state primary schools and inadequate teacher-training mean children in poorer outer suburbs are disadvantaged. By year nine, there is now a five-year gap in reading ability between advantaged and disadvantaged children. Beyond basic mathematics, today’s children must become computer-literate at an early age as most future work opportunities will depend on computer literacy. So, policy attempts to ban iPhones from the classroom are fraught and contentious. And AI. is just around the corner.

Most parents want to give their children the best opportunity in life, and many make choices for their education starting from primary school. They can see state schools are lacking and will sacrifice to send their children to what they perceive is the school which will give their child an advantage. This is a hidden factor in the central issue of high living costs. They want to ensure places in selective secondary schools or private schools based on the obvious superiority of those school facilities (labs, halls, sports grounds, swimming pools, classroom facilities and curriculum choices) and assumptions about better teacher quality, values and discipline.

Many opt for schools of their own religion, removed from the supposed benefits of multiculturalism and a cohesive Australian culture, The badges of advantage extend from school uniforms to wider extra-curricular options and future job networks.

The abolition of technical schools was a major mistake, leaving students, not academically inclined, to struggle with a secondary school curriculum aimed at university entrance, unsuited to their talents. While the old saw of, “He’s good with his hands” drove many parental decisions, it was based on a false notion of “intelligence” which was misunderstood until Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences, all of which, we now understand, should be nurtured from the start. The minister is attempting to redress this blunder with support for TAFE and vocational training.

A fairer funding framework, including a “per student” funding standard between the education sectors was outlined in the Gonski Report in 2012, but these recommendations have still not been met and the disparities between the independent, private and state schools remain clear. The obvious differences in quality school resources mentioned above are driving factors, but the absurd focus on final-year exam results, directed at university entrance scores, distorts a proper focus on getting the best out of every student regardless of family background.

The next institutional barrier to equity is the disaster of reduced government funding of universities. Long gone from Whitlam’s free access to anyone qualified for further study, universities now rely on full fee-paying overseas students, their proportion of the budget rising to 27% in 2023 (University of Melbourne 45%). This shift to a model of funding, based largely on fee-paying overseas students, has distorted the quality of teaching — with casual staff supervising group work for example — and led to a focus on research which has altered the nature of the university campus experience for domestic Australian students.

Clare asserts that every student has the right to a university education, but as experience of the job has shown him, the whole system conspires against this goal. Given the barriers, the policy of equity for all in school education is unviable. Add to this the erosion of full funding for universities in favour of fee-paying overseas students and the final straw on the camel’s back embeds inequality for domestic students.

The funding model for education at all levels is failing to meet the goal of equity; the public institutions are being crippled by lack of resources and debt-laden students emerge through the higher education system if they last the distance. Until the education pathway is restructured, funded equitably, quality childcare assured, teachers much better trained and supported, and HECS/HELP repayments abolished, the numbers of young people disadvantaged by a failed education system will grow inexorably.

Clare is aware a complete rethink of where education funding should best be spent is required. The states need to come on board. It’s a near-impossible task without a courageous rethink and restructure.