Change In Australian Education

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For change to have any element of success, it must be realistic, attractive, empowering, and have a positive impact on students. Stoll (2006) states this simply as “The ultimate purpose of educational change has to be beneficial to students”.

The actual definition of change is simple. The Australian concise Oxford dictionary (2009) defines change as an “act or instance of making or becoming different”, yet complexity arises when you look into its multifaceted nature and that change of decades past may no longer relevant to education today. An understanding of the degree of involvement of various groups, those influenced by the outcomes, the personal costs involved, the difficulty in measuring success, the monetary costs involved, the varying interconnections of people involved and the types of change themselves, including economic, cultural, structural and strategic, is essential. Waks (2007) affirms that change is multidimensional with interdependent facets including object, rate, feature, magnitude, causes and consequences. Fullan (2016) on the other hand outlines ten different elements of
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Recent policies in Australian education, places an emphasis on performance. NAPLAN and teacher accreditation are obvious examples of structural change. It is essential that emphasis is not solely on the policies themselves, but it must also include the process of implementation, ensuring productive connections are encouraged between the numerous facets. Motivation is also crucial for change. Fullan (2016, p. 37) states that “meaning fuels motivation”, therefore any change must have meaning to all involved. Not an easy task. As stated in the introductory video for module two, Noel Tichy, in 1983 asserts that teachers are beings of habit and will repeat what they are comfortable with, therefore a culture of reluctance to change

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