Educational equity is often mistaken for treating every student the same. In reality, it’s about something far more deliberate: ensuring every child gets what they need to succeed, regardless of their background.
As some experts have argued, equity means closing the gaps that disadvantage students long before they walk through the school gates. Yet Australia’s schools continue to lag behind many OECD nations on this front, with student outcomes still strongly shaped by postcode and family income.
Fortunately, this has given education policymakers pause, because so long as equity remains elusive, so too do the “world-class schools” that the Federal Government aims to deliver.
Professor Pasi Sahlberg is a world-renowned expert who has studied education systems and advised education system reforms around the world. Since moving to Australia in 2018, Professor Sahlberg has been researching how Australia’s schools can break down barriers to equity so that every student can succeed, regardless of their background.
Today, Professor Sahlberg is a distinguished figure within the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, where he teaches and mentors educators, leads research on school improvement and equity, and helps shape education policy in Australia and globally.
He says Australia’s education system, in international comparison, is both unequal in access and inequitable in outcomes.
“It is among the more socio-educationally segregated systems, with a growing concentration of students with additional needs and disadvantage in the same schools, predominantly in the public sector,” Professor Sahlberg told The Educator, adding that three dynamics are driving this pattern.
“First, achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are continuing to widen. Second, substantial public funding flows to already well-resourced independent schools, while most public schools remain underfunded. Third, consequently, enrolments in government schools are declining that is weakening the role of public education.”
Professor Sahlberg said these trends, when taken together, are placing public education under growing pressure.
“Tougher market-driven competition between schools does not serve the schools or the broader public good,” he said.
“Indeed, it can erode social cohesion and, over time, undermine national prosperity. In such a system, the most vulnerable children face diminished learning conditions, while more privileged students are exposed to a narrower, less representative view of society.”
Professor Sahlberg said equity and prosperity “reinforce one another in a virtuous circle”.
“Equity strengthens prosperity, and prosperity creates the conditions for greater fairness. Education systems that invest in equity are more likely to sustain both high performance and social cohesion over time.”
Support not flowing to needy schools in time
Teach For Australia CEO, Edwina Dohle, is another champion for educational equity in Australia.
For over a decade, Dohle worked in the Commonwealth public service, strengthening national systems to support effective teaching and learning. Dohle’s experience – both as an educator and working at the systems-level – puts her in a unique position to bridge classroom realities with broader structural reform.
She says one of the most significant drivers of educational inequity across Australia is the growing divide between schools.
“Too often, a young person’s educational experience is shaped not by their potential, but by their postcode, family income or the circumstances they were born into,” Dohle told The Educator.
“Over time, we have seen disadvantage become concentrated in particular schools and communities, while access to experienced teachers, specialist expertise, strong leadership and broader supports have become uneven across the system.”
Dohle says the system has also been too slow to fully deliver a genuinely needs-based approach to funding, especially for schools serving communities facing disadvantage.
“The result is that some schools are being asked to carry the greatest load with the least support,” she said. “If we want a more equitable education system, we need to confront the reality that background still plays too great a role in shaping opportunity for too many young Australians.”
Schools need freedom to lead change
Professor Sahlberg cautioned that while all Australian states and territories have now signed up to the Federal Government’s Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, it will not be enough on its own to make Australian education better and fairer.
“More money matters, but equitable education only becomes a reality when governments, schools, and other public policy sectors work together to tackle the wider social inequalities that shape children’s lives and learning,” he said. “The extra funding now promised to public schools should be invested where it will make the greatest difference to equity in outcomes.”
Professor Sahlberg said that means focusing less on compliance and more on creative capacity of schools to change.
“One meaningful shift would be to give schools more room to lead change in the areas they can control,” he said. “Governments need to loosen their administrative grip and back schools to drive improvement in ways that respond to their needs and their communities.”
Professor Sahlberg said professional learning should be more directly aimed at strengthening the agency of schools, teachers, and students, and then schools should be supported to develop concrete, shared definitions of equity to guide action.
“Many Australian schools are ready to do this,” he said. Meaningful change rarely comes from the top alone. It often starts with a brave minority showing what is possible.”
Hard-to-staff schools need stronger incentives
When asked what actions she thinks would make Australia’s schools more equitable, Dohle pointed to “a stronger focus on getting excellent teachers, leaders and evidence-informed practice into the schools and communities that need them most.”
“One of the most important actions we can take is to address the uneven distribution of teaching and leadership capability across the system,” she said. “This means thinking differently about staffing across schools, regions and communities, including more flexible workforce approaches that help direct expertise where it can have the most impact.”
Dohle said the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement’s prioritising of a strong and sustainable workforce should be welcomed, more work is needed on how to attract quality teachers and school leaders into schools that are missing out.
“We also need to learn from schools already bucking the trend and achieving notable change in areas like attendance, wellbeing, and academic outcomes, then ask how those practices can be spread more widely across the system.”