Towards Levyathan? Industry levies in Australia
Research paper
Industry levies – narrowly applied, sector-specific taxes – are proliferating in Australia. There were four industry levies in 1960, 26 in 1980 and today there are 248. This paper explores the evolution of Australian industry levies since Federation, how they represent a growing form of micro-taxation in Australia, and the potential factors that have supported their proliferation. The paper also provides a framework for assessing the public policy case for individual industry levies.
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- Despite a long history of policy attention, no consistent improvement has been made in the literacy and numeracy achievement of Indigenous Australian primary school students.
- A better evidence base and understanding of how to improve the literacy and numeracy achievement of Indigenous students is needed to improve policy outcomes.
- Access to newly available national data linking student achievement and demographic characteristics with school characteristics permits analysis of a subset of the characteristics thought to be associated with education achievement.
- Analysis of these data shows a wide variation in literacy and numeracy achievement among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous primary school students. But Indigenous students are over-represented among low achievers, and under-represented among high achievers.
- Disparate achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is also widespread geographically. While greatest in more remote areas, differences also manifest in metropolitan and provincial areas where most Indigenous students attend school. For example, in 2014, Indigenous students in non-remote areas accounted for 55 per cent of the national gap in reading achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous year 5 students.
- Achievement disparities remain even after other observed characteristics of students and their schools are taken into account. The reasons for this result are unclear.
- The well-established result that socioeconomic background explains more of the variation in literacy and numeracy achievement than any other characteristic observed in the dataset is confirmed for Indigenous and non-Indigenous primary school students. Other important factors include the general socioeconomic background of students attending a school and, for Indigenous students only, the average school attendance rate and the proportion of Indigenous students in a school's enrolment.
- However, characteristics observed in the dataset explain less than one third of the total variation in student achievement. Most of the unexplained variation is due to differences between students (rather than between schools).
- This meshes with findings from the broader education literature — emphasising that children have individually different learning needs — not readily categorised according to demographic characteristics. The literature suggests that the key to improving achievement, for all students, is individualised instruction.
- For Indigenous students, the evidence suggests that a culture of high expectations in schools; strong student-teacher, and community, relationships; and support for culture are also particularly important — all underpinned by strong school leadership.
- Policy development also needs to be informed by context, especially that many Indigenous students attend schools with few other Indigenous students. Arguably, quality teaching will be especially critical to these students in the absence of some forms of support better suited to students in schools with larger Indigenous enrolments, for example, Indigenous education workers.
- The analysis suggests some schools are punching above their weight — Indigenous students do considerably better than might be expected given their characteristics and those of the school they attend.
- Insights from systematic evaluation of high (and low) achieving schools could shed light, in a cost effective way, on what works best to lift achievement of Indigenous students.
