Developing Social Policy Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : social policy assessment

Assessment 3: Essay on Policy Analysis

Introduction 

In general social policy is always associated with the governmental and political setting for welfare state and research of social services. The social policy contains all types of guidelines, principles, actions and legislation which impact on the living condition of human such as an individual's quality of life. According to the London School of Economics social policy is consider as the interdisciplinary approach as its concern with the analysis of the societies' replies to social requirement, It has been determined that social policy also concerns with the economics, sociology, law, history and politics etc. In simple words, social policy is described by the public policy and its practice in the area of human services, inequality, education and labor etc. ( Brady& Bostic, 2015). In addition to this, essay focuses on the present government social policy in Australia. It particularly focuses on the education policy of Australia. The aim of this essay is to discuss the relevant theory related to the education policy as well as determine the rationale of the education policy. Moreover, it also includes the critical assessment of the education policy as well as it offers few suggestions and recommendation to make the implemented policy more successful. 

In the present scenario, the Australian government has identified that children's wellbeing and safety are important for academic and social development. It helps the students to utilize advanced technology in education. Education policies offer information for students, parents, teachers, parents to increase the awareness related to the policies. In the context of the education policy, Australian Department of education, employment and workplace relations offer the guidance for the use of the ICT in schools and it is a national method which supports the schools to identify problems such as violence, child abuse etc. (Lingard, Thompson, & Sellar, 2015). Additionally, Australia works with the shared education system in the contract with states. The Australian education system directed nationally from the contract with the stated and territories which concentrate on the education significances and funding.  School and states can decide on lower secondary education.  As per the Australian educational policy, various policies have been developed which are as follow-

1. Australia government has done the investment for early education along with the National Early Childhood Development Strategy (2009) which has the objective to strengthen internships to enhance the skills of the children through socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. 

2. There were the school policy, Students First (2014), through which Australian government aims to follow four key policy areas; enhancing the quality of teaching, developing a powerful national curriculum, increasing principal's autonomy and engaging parents and community towards the school process.  

3. Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AISTL) (2010) targets to promote effectiveness in the area of teaching and school leadership, AITSL creates the policies at national level which support the educators to become expert and carried out the excellence in school leadership and teaching (Gorur & Wu, 2015).

4. The Australian government is applying various policies which aim to enhance the quality of teaching at various points. For example, the Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders target to promote the enhancement across the teaching career. 

However, Australia’s has an innovative approach towards the development of education and this approach has made the Australia world's leading international education service providers. The country has created the education system in an as innovative and efficient way. It has been observed that various countries look towards Australia for education policy suggestions.  In addition to this, now Australian education policy is a framework focus on the quality (Au & Ferrare, 2015).  Australian qualification framework involves key areas; teaching, courses, qualification, client service, protection and governance. Australia qualification framework is associated with Australian school, higher education qualification and vocational. It has been observed that AQF promote the choice, lifelong learning and flexible delivery etc. Furthermore, the Australian Department of Education takes the responsibilities for national policies and programs that support Australian availability towards the quality and reasonable childhood education, school education, vocational training and academic research. Department of Education focuses on various operational activities which are as follow-

1. Focus on vocational education and training at the school level.

2. Higher education policy 

3.  Research grants and fellowship 

4. Co-ordination of early childhood development policy and responsibilities. 

Moreover, as per the  education policy Australian education system offer primary, secondary and tertiary education.  In Australia, primary and secondary education is mandatory all over Australia with small changes among the states and territories. School education involves children from age 1 to 10 years.  In the case of tertiary education, it involves higher education as well as vocational education and training. Though, English is the official language for Australia which is also involved education system. Therefore in various schools of Australia provide bilingual programs in several languages. 

 Additionally, it has been observed that Australian education policy has experienced vigorous improvement in recent years. It has been found that Australian educational leaders and policymakers are not able to neglect the influence of social and economic globalization which constantly carried out new opportunities and issues in all the area of international society. (Kuzhabekova, Hendel, & Chapman, 2015).Therefore, in the educational sector various concern has been raised such as political and social issues has been identified which impact on the Australian education policy. In recent years, the Australian government has worked on suitable policies from a joint mission of educational norms and educational research.  In the context of educational policy, it has been observed that Australian learning institutions collaborate with the stakeholders and parents to come up with the various actions which are required to taken to identify the issues such as gender equality in the Australian educational system. Apart from this, it has been observed that the Australian education system and educational policy has faced the failure in six different ways which are as follow-

1. Due to the declination of the education standard in Australia, the teenage students of Australia are falling at an international level. As per the report of PISA, Australian students are considered as an average performer. 

2. It has been determined that for any occupation student need to have the knowledge of science, engineering, mathematics and technology. But in Australia, the requirement of STEM is declining at the national level. In various parts of Australia Maths is not considered at the senior secondary level (Sellar, 2015).

3. Australia focuses on the other language in its education system but is becoming monolingual because English is the only language which is considered as the basic skill across the world. Therefore, competition has been increased for the jobs in Australia and those students consider who are competent in English. 

4. It has been determined that international and migrant students perform, better than the Australian student.  

5. At international level or international benchmarking research shows that Australia's teacher education norm presently facing the issues against the high achieving nations. 

6. Presently, it has been observed that Australia has raised the level of early childhood education through investments which will help to increase early childhood participation.  

According to the report of ABC NEWS, Australian educational policy and system have majorly changed in last few years. It happens majorly from national policy improvement agreed by Australian state and the federal government. These involve; university accessible year of pre-school, Australian Curriculum, Professional standards for teachers and principals etc.  Major changes occur in education policy because of speedy economic change, social, cultural and technological changes which increased the pressure as well as opportunities for educational policy. Moreover, in the context of education policy, it more important to think about the innovation, productive interaction as they  are associated with the policy and ideas. As per the various scholars and policy thinkers consider that there is a scope of improvement related to the teaching evaluation, funding, curriculum and system-wide collaboration (Leahy,  Burrows, McCuaig, Wright, & Penney, 2015).  In addition to this, it has been observed that there are various significant improvement has taken the place over the last few years but unfortunately, there are less indication of positive influences such as-  

1. Less per cent of Australian students are effectively completing their high school education. 

2. Federal school polices still regenerating the status quo that establishes sectorial division.

3. The performance is declining of Australian students at international level in the area of Maths, science and other skills.

4. Vocational training has shown the little improvement. 

5. NAPLAN and My school do not show improvement in the area of numeracy and literacy.

The overall analysis suggests and recommends that in education policy; system funding is the most important aspect. Investing more on the early childhood effective teaching as well as core curriculum will offer an excellent return on investment. By analyzing the schooling system of Australia it has been observed that high- performing nations have a school system based on more playing field compare to Australia. Australian education policy requires more log-term plan in the area of early childhood education, schools, TAFE and universities.  (Baker, 2018). It involves planning for helping and empowering teacher education. Moreover, Australian education policy requires more loudly public conversation related to Australian education. Apart from this, it has been suggested that to improve the educational policy it is important to focus on the skilled-based programs from primary school to high school. It is very significant to focus on the skill program which helps to determine the positive impact of school-based enhancement. Following are the recommendations to improve the educational system of Australia-

1. Promote the school leadership at the school level to identify the national priority for constant professional development. 

2. Need to encourage awareness between schools which will help to improve the student's accomplishment, health, learning and wellbeing.

3. Launch the transparent and clear policies, programs and process which help to develop the association with various educational institutes as well as with their staffs, students and parents. 

4. The development of the educational policy needs to be supportive in order to access quality learning for school as well as to understand the various types of educational learning.

5. The enhanced educational policy need to make sure that new teachers entering the profession receiving the effective training to deal will all kind for the situation in the educational area.

Through analysis, it has been found that educational policy in Australia requires some changes, especially for young students. Therefore, it has been suggested that young students or higher secondary level students require a platform to unite young people to stand for equitable modification in the educational system. In addition to this, at the secondary school level, it is important to tell the students about the requirement and significance of mastering in STEM  subjects (Hattie, 2015). Also, engage the students by establishing coding and programming as different subjects. The educational policy needs to change the objective and purpose as it needs to focus on the development and enhancing the natural capacity of the students. Apart from this, it is been suggested that Australian educational policy need to focus more on innovation.

Conclusion 

It has been concluded that each and every social policy is significant for a particular nation because it is always related to the governmental and political setting. It has been observed that social policy comprises various guidelines and principles which impact the people life.  Further, social policy is associated with various aspects such as work policy, family policy and education policy. Through the analysis of the Australian educational policy, it has been determining that in the area of education Australian government is focusing on the student’s welfare and safety as it aligns with the social and academic development.

However, it has been observed that in recent years Australian educational policy is focusing on the various aspects of education such as early childhood learning, higher education and vocational training. It has experienced various improvements which cannot be neglected at the international level. For enhancing, the educational policy Australian government is collaborating with the parent so that it comes with the different set of activities to determine the issues related to the educational system such as the gender equality issue. Apart from this, it has been analysed that in present situation Australian education policy and the system is lacking behind at international level. Therefore, suggestion and recommendation have been given in order to improve the educational policy.  

References 

Au, W., & Ferrare, J. J. (Eds.). (2015). Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state. London: Routledge.

Baker, P. (2018). A genealogy of Australian educational revolutions (Doctoral dissertation, University of Newcastle).

Brady, D., & Bostic, A. (2015). Paradoxes of social policy: Welfare transfers, relative poverty, and redistribution preferences. American Sociological Review, 80(2), 268-298.

Bush, T., Bell, L., & Middlewood, D. (Eds.). (2019). Principles of Educational Leadership & Management. SAGE Publications Limited.

Gorur, R., & Wu, M. (2015). Leaning too far? PISA, policy and Australia's ‘top five’ambitions. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 36(5), 647-664.

Hattie, J. (2015). Can Australian education become self-transforming?. Australian Educational Leader, 37(1), 8.

Kuzhabekova, A., Hendel, D. D., & Chapman, D. W. (2015). Mapping global research on international higher education. Research in Higher Education, 56(8), 861-882.

Leahy, D., Burrows, L., McCuaig, L., Wright, J., & Penney, D. (2015). School health education in changing times: Curriculum, pedagogies and partnerships. London: Routledge.

Lingard, B., Thompson, G., & Sellar, S. (Eds.). (2015). National testing in schools: An Australian assessment. London: Routledge.

Sellar, S. (2015). A feel for numbers: Affect, data and education policy. Critical Studies in Education, 56(1), 131-146