INDUSTRIAL-RELATIONS AND THE RATIONALIZATION OF AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION

There is a recognisable orthodoxy in current discussion of award restructuring in Australian education. Its central proposition is that productivity-based wage increases would inevitably be accompanied by a general improvement in the quality of education. However the new industrial logic would lead to a substantial narrowing of the mainstream curriculum, Furthermore teacher union representation within corporatist decision-making procedures would increasingly be forced to accept as a given the contemporary trend towards consolidation of economic rationalist controls over educational priorities and practices. Rejecting any pursuit of wage justice for teachers that proposes to trade away 'old style' teacher union commitments to democracy and equality in education, I argue for a much more inclusive model of educational accountability, one based resolutely on anti-corporatist forms of educational participation.