Community and Place in Tasmania – advantage or

disadvantage?David Adams

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What this presentation is about:

• Changing nature of community especially in Tasmania

• Changing role of place in the educational landscape

• How these combine to change the landscape for understanding disadvantage and the role of Principals and Schools in addressing disadvantage

Education provision historically linked to both place and community but now both place and community are fragmented and contested

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Why we like the idea of community - places and spaces which forge and make sense of:

• Identity and belonging (learning to be)• Resources for living• Trust and resilience• Safety, security in its many forms – personal, supply etc.• Reciprocity and diversity (learning to live together)• Skills and competencies (learning to do)• Creativity and understanding (learning to know)

So…pretty important to learning

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Why we are concerned about Place

• Aligns with the image of community – historical site of community and therefore source of learning resources starting with family….

• Disadvantage has a postcode - and levels increase with distance from cities

• Tasmanian population dispersed

• Regional places seem to be in decline – including leadership of place

• Education (mainly public) historically organised around place –horizontal fiscal equalisation

• Principals are (should that be were?) place shapers

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Historically place and community aligned with distinctive geographical boundaries

• Where people live their lives• Where they travel for resources, work• Where they play and pray• Where they learn

❖ So Councils in Tasmania were formed to reduce the ‘mendicant’ relationship to Hobart….over 80….

But now the alignment between community and place and economy and learning are fragmenting – schools are right in the midst of making sense of where this is all heading.

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Community and Place

• Old places and spaces:

wards, parishes, guilds, shires

strong family bonds

ordered ‘solid’ lives

• New places and spaces:

the globe, Facebook, twitter

strength of weak ties- networks

Life in fragments (average of 16 residences/14 vocations)

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The ‘Problem’ for Regional Communities

• Low birth rates

• Out migration of young people (median 27)

• Influx of older people (median 31)

• People living longer

• Affluent older people move to the city to be closer to services poorer older people cannot afford to move to the city

• Cities a magnet for the young

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Future is in Connectivity and Liquidity

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Rural Challenges for Population Growth in TasmaniaIncreased productivity but:

• Robotification and mechanisation

• Consolidation of farm

• Share cropping

• Remote management

• Transport improvement

• FIFO and DIDO

• Offshore processing

i.e. more wealth and less people

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Shire of Melton (Vic) population growth

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Education Logic of Place

[1] Pedagogical - best and most equitable learning environment for the student in the family

[2] Economic - most efficient way of organising[3] Community - best way of tapping into community resources[4] Subsidiarity - push decisions to the level closest to the client[5] Equity – all children should have access to same quality of experience

An historical presumption of local/place (in the public sector) with the attendant architecture we now know as ‘schools’

All place based strategies are an attempt to reconcile these goalsAre Principals the Stewards of this logic?

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Played out very badly in the last school closure debate[1] Pedagogical – ‘small schools can’t attract good teachers and

aspirational parents send their children elsewhere’

[2] Economic – ‘burden on the public purse’

[3] Community – ‘our social fabric is being torn apart – domino effect’

[4] Subsidiarity – ‘it’s a government decision’

[5] Equity – ‘children will have a better learning experience in bigger schools’

How do we understand and weight these arguments?

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• S4(1) d parents are the first and most important educators of the child

• S4(1) e The importance of the State, parents, teachers, schools, other educational institutions and the wider community working collaboratively together….

otherwise not a lot about place and community….

Education Act….

Some questions

How do we best support static/declining areas of Tasmania?

• have a celebration and fold up the tent

• subsidise them (often inefficiently)

• shape a new future…..’partnerships’

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Current place boundaries in Tasmania(approx. 46 overlays)

• Postcode• Electorates• Local government areas• State government departments (27) • Bio-regions – e.g. natural resource management bodies• Regions (at least 3) • City deals• ABS ……etc.

Very few of these relate to the idea of ‘community’

Very limited alignment

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Examples of current place strategies….

• Learning Services (2)

• Networks (6)

• School Associations

• School ‘catchments’

• Clusters ( e.g. Connect 6) / Collaborative Groups

• School Facebook

• NDIS

• Child and Family Centres…..

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The Irony of Equity

• Democracy, Parliaments and Governments organised around people (voters) and places (electorates) but the public sector gradually reorganised around functional departments, programs, outputs and administrative boundaries

• Has been very successful for a few hundred years but may have reached its limits.......complexity and interdependence need to be ‘managed’ differently

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Global checklist for successful place based strategies

[1] Are there place based budgets pooled within and across agencies and between levels of government focussed on long term student learning impact?

▫ Yes

▫ No

▫ Don’t be silly

…so frequently Principals are the sense makers!

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Checklist – ctd.

[2] subsidiarity of decision making over matters of local importance

[3] community participation more than 50% around the table

[4] safety valve for pear shaped events

[5] how many employees live in the community?

[6] a Minister responsible and accountable?

[7] do we understand the cumulative impact of investments?

[8] lifecycle approach – not programs (social venture capital)

[9] clear mandate from legislation

[10] incentivisation for place lens (e.g. dedicated resources)

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Average lifespan of place strategies = 3 yearsWhy?

• Formal authorising environment fades – usually a champion leaves

• ROI becomes fuzzy over time….goals change

• Rarely embedded in output structure of Departments – usually a pilot

• Loss of social license

• Competing and new boundaries – overlays on overlays

i.e. Value proposition of place is now essentially contested – partly because of the separation from community

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Boundaries of the future

• Cities and other settlements (hub and spoke/ecosystems/nodes etc.)

• Bio catchments (around 9 in Tasmania)

• Security

• Economic regions

• Identity (picks up virtual boundaries)

We need to be thinking about how to organise learning and education in these settings…and how to ensure community remains attached.

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Local Councils and Crucial Partners

➢ Eight defined roles for LG including:1. Sense of Place Wellbeing

2. Community Engagement

3. Strategic leadership

4. Land-Use Planning

5. Economic Development

6. Services and Assets

7. Legislation and By-Laws

8. Representation and Cooperation

➢ New Single Tasmanian Planning Scheme• Health and Wellbeing is now one of the objectives…..we tried but failed with education

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Communities of the future….

Old meets new community

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Liquid world - multiple weak ties with new rituals are the new social capital

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Disadvantage Landscape more broadly, is changing rapidly

• Velocity - (stuff happens more quickly) – think bullying in schools and community ability to quickly organise around an issue such as school closures

• Volume - e.g. mental health challenges

• Variety - complex interdependent challenges – obesity, trauma….

• Veracity – is social media always right?

Impacts on both community and place – new sites for learning

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Liquid Society

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Summary• Nature of community and role of place are rapidly changing but still

important to understanding and addressing disadvantage• Most schools grounded in places but community no longer anchored to

place • In the plethora of programs and services we seem to have lost sight of the

student in the family in the community• Principals have an important but ambiguous role in stewardship of place

and community • Crucial to the future will be:

▪ Digital inclusion▪ Use of new technologies to understand place complexity▪ Partnerships with Councils▪ Local leadership – ‘sense making’

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So……..

Is this something you do or should think about?

Do you have a stewardship role in local sense making?

Are you equipped to be on the front line of addressing disadvantage?

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