Opinion: Watershed in Australian philanthropy

Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s donation of $65m to five Western Australian universities is a watershed in Australian philanthropy.

It’s a remarkable and breathtaking act of generosity that will be a benchmark for other high net worth Australians – and the charities that chase them – for years to come.

But for those of us active in the education space it speaks volumes for a different reason.

It’s explicit recognition – delivered with accompanying cymbal crashes, trumpets and timpani such is its scale – that education is absolutely fundamental in delivering shared prosperity.

That the donation comes during Anti Poverty Week is even more important for us because it allows us to reflect on the power for investment in education to ‘lift all boats’ and eliminate disadvantage.

The Forrest’s have a long record of investing in communities, particularly Aboriginal communities, to build skills, and to grow individual and community capacity, as a pathway to independence.

They know that providing all Australians with the opportunity to realise their potential is central to enhancing our overall productivity and bringing economic benefits and social cohesion.

They also know that education is the foundation for Western Australians being able to meet the challenges and opportunities of a highly volatile global economy.

For example, as our population ages and the mining boom wanes, our prosperity becomes more reliant on knowledge, on the cleverness of our people.

And that’s where we start entering troubled waters.

Australia’s education performance has flat-lined over the last decade and significant numbers of our young people are not meeting key educational outcomes.

We’re not only behind comparable countries like Canada but our performance has declined at the same time many of our neighbours have improved.

Even more concerning is that the relationship between student background and educational outcomes is more pronounced in Australia than in other comparable developed nations.

In Australia, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are almost 20 per cent less likely to complete Year 12 than students from advantaged backgrounds.

They start behind and slip further back as the years progress.

Locally, the reading gap between young West Australians from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more affluent peers is more than 21 per cent at Year 5 and almost 11 per cent at Year 7.

A groundbreaking study by the University of Western Australia examined school attendance rates in our state between 2008 and 2012.

It confirmed that school attendance is absolutely crucial in terms of a young person’s education and that there is no ‘safe threshold’ for absenteeism – every day of attendance counts toward your final educational outcome.

The study found the state’s most disadvantaged students – many of them Aboriginal young people – missed more than a day of school each week. This equates to about one term of school each year or 1.7 years of missed school by the end of primary.

Between years 8 and 10 these students were absent from school for around one year out of three.

Young people with poor educational outcomes are more likely to experience unemployment and health difficulties, and rely more heavily on income support, in their adult years – creating an additional burden on them, their families and Australia as a whole.

So as an organisation like The Smith Family – which has as its ambition keeping vulnerable young Australians engaged in education – goes about its work, we see a great deal of room for improvement.

The WA government’s recent review of funding for the state’s public schools called for a new funding model that reflected our schools’ unique challenges. It said schools needed flexibility in how resources were distributed and the capacity to address differences in student needs.

They’re the principles that run through our own efforts to deliver outcomes for disadvantaged schools.

The Smith Family and the Fogarty Foundation have recently joined with schools and a range of other stakeholders in the Swan local government area to forge a ‘school community partnership’ – a new and innovative way of bringing extra resources into our schools.

We know that in disadvantaged communities there is a scarcity of services and opportunities available to children and their families.  We know this places an undue burden on schools.

But through partnerships – by bringing in expertise from the community and philanthropic organisations, business and the wider community – extra resources can be harnessed to support schools.

Early results are encouraging. What’s happening in Swan has the potential to be rolled out in similar communities throughout the state and beyond. We certainly need more of them.

In the years ahead, the Forrest’s gift will no doubt deliver healthy financial returns – not just for the universities and the research teams it funds – but for all of us.

But it will also no doubt deliver a social benefit far beyond its staggering monetary value.

Investment in education – be it in our sandstone universities or the poorest schools in our state – is the surest possible bet on our future success.

This article appeared as an opinion piece by The Smith Family's WA General Manager, Greg Ryan-Gadsden in the West Australian newspaper on Wed 16 October.