Education and Public Policy in Australia

Abstract

This book summarises and analyses the major issues in Australian education policy today: the relationship between education and work; the reform of higher education and vocational training; outputs and resources; class sizes; the role of government and the public-private debate in schooling. It also examines the main economic theories about education, including human capital theory and free market theory, and finds them seriously inadequate as a basis for policy. The author argues that economic rationalism has installed a free market agenda at the heart of public education policy, with deep consequences for the academic and democratic development of Australia's citizens.