Webinar transcript: Lessons from Québec

This is the transcript of School System Transformation is Possible: Lessons from Québec, a Schools for All Australia webinar held on 27 August 2026. Stéphane Vigneault of École Ensemble was joined by Adrian Piccoli and Professor Pasi Sahlberg to discuss school segregation, reform in Québec and the lessons for Australia.

This transcript has been formatted for reading and may contain transcription errors.

Schools for All Australia | 27 August 2026

[00:00:00] Caroline David

This evening. If you did not wish to be shown on the video, please turn off your camera and your name display. We are each connecting from different parts of Australia, and indeed other parts of the world, and I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the many lands on which we are gathered, including the lands of the Wadi Wadi people of the Darawal Nation. unceded lands, which I have the privilege to live and work on. I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us. As an organization committed to equity in education. We recognise that this commitment must include working towards better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and communities. And we recognise their continuing connection to land, water, and culture. I come to this work with a deep and personal commitment to equity in education. I'm a public school principal and a member of the leadership team at Schools for All Australia.

[00:01:05] Caroline David

I have taught in high-fee independent girls and co-ed, Catholic boys, and government selective schools. I'm also a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. For the same fundamental reason that brought me to each of these roles, I'm living this work. Every day, I see what's possible when a school that accepts all children is given the opportunity to truly transform young lives, regardless of their family circumstances. And I see just as clearly what's at stake for young people when they experience segregated schooling. My academic research into school choice keeps bringing me back to the same finding. The schools that do the heaviest lifting are subject to the highest reputational scrutiny. And that's what drives me, so that every child in every school can have every opportunity. Not just some children in some schools. So, how did Schools for All Australia come about? I was not the only one to be asking big questions of our education system.

[00:02:13] Caroline David

Mark MORRIS, a parent in Toowoomba. Was reading all the research about what's wrong with our school system, and kept coming back to the same questions. Why do we have an increasingly segregated school system? Why hasn't somebody done something already? At the same time, two other things were happening. Firstly, Australian Learning Lecture, led by Ellen Koshland, had been investigating positive international models provided support for a group of Australian educators and researchers, including myself, to visit Canada in 2024. We found some provinces, such as Ontario, doing things very differently to Australia with great success. And others, such as Quebec, with the same policy settings as Australia, had exactly the same structural challenges. Secondly, John Bush, a leader in education philanthropy who had supported research, policy development, and advocacy to address segregation in our school systems, was designing an initiative to build on that work. The Canada Network, the network that Mark MORRIS had developed, and John Bush's emerging work came together to create Schools for All Australia.

[00:03:32] Caroline David

Our vision is for an Australian schooling system where every child, in every school, has a fair go and the opportunity to thrive. We want to see 5 core values underpinning our school system. Shared responsibility. So that every school shares responsibility for every student. Excellence! Every student deserves an excellent education that enables them to flourish and achieve their full potential. opportunity, Every student should have the opportunity to succeed. Choice. Choice shall be real and accessible, not limited by circumstance. And equity. Every child deserves a fair go, no matter where they start in life. Every child, every school, every opportunity. The founding leadership team of Schools for All Australia is a group of nine Australians deeply committed to a more equitable schooling system. Together, we're inviting all Australians on a journey to collaborate. Think creatively, and devise new solutions together. We believe it is important to open up a new conversation, consult widely, and listen to diverse perspectives.

[00:04:54] Caroline David

We would love for you to be part of this movement too, and we'll be providing more information on how you can participate upon the conclusion to this webinar. I would like to introduce to you the panel for this evening's discussion. I have a sad announcement regarding one of our panellists. Less than an hour ago, Jane Caro found out that her husband has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. And so she cannot continue with the webinar. I'm sure that all our participants will be with Jane as she goes through a very worrying time. The Honourable Adrian Piccoli is a widely respected education leader. who served as the New South Wales Minister for Education from 2011 to 2017 as a member of the National Party. Throughout his political career, he was a staunch advocate for equitable funding. Leading the historic implementation of the Gonsky funding reforms in New South Wales. He's a former director of the Gonsky Institute for Education.

[00:05:55] Caroline David

And continues to contribute to national education policy debate as a much sought-after media commentator. Pasi Sahlberg is a world-renowned Finnish educator and author with deep expertise in how equitable, high-performing systems operate. Pasi has advised policymakers across the globe on the value of cooperation and equity over competition, and he's now the Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne. He brings an invaluable international lens to how Australia can dismantle structural divisions to create a truly inclusive schooling system. Our keynote this evening is Stephane Vigneault. Stephane is the co-founder and coordinator of Ecole Ensemble, or School Together. He's a passionate champion of equity and opportunity in education. Stephane has led the way in subjecting Quebec's three-tier schooling system to critical scrutiny, and forging a positive vision of a more equal, effective, and inclusive school system. It is not an exaggeration to say he has transformed the discourse about schools in the province. Stephane has brought an extensive background in public policy, political science, and communications to this work.

[00:07:16] Caroline David

He actively collaborates with a wide range of citizen groups, and frequently provides expert commentary in the media to champion structural reforms that eliminate student selection, halt social segregation, and enhance comprehensive and inclusive education for every child. Excuse me. He has already been a huge inspiration to Australians who believe our children deserve a better school system, and we're so glad he has generously joined us today. The schedule for this evening is on the screen. Shortly, we'll invite Stephane, who is joining us from Canada, to present his experience in Quebec. Following that will be a 30-minute panel discussion, and then a 15-minute opportunity for the panel to respond to a selection of your questions. If you wish to pose a question to the panel, we're going old school, and we're inviting you to submit your question by reply email to the message on which you received this meeting invite at hello at schoolsforall.au. I met Stephane two years ago with the Canada research team, and I was in awe of his humility, yet phenomenal courage to tackle such a complex issue.

[00:08:34] Caroline David

and his ability to bring with him a legion of grassroots folks who were able to combine to effect truly positive change in Quebec. I would also like to acknowledge that it's 6am for him, and thank him for his grace in accepting our invitation to speak with us now. Over to you, Stephane.

[00:08:57] Stéphane Vigneault

Alright, thank you very much, Kathleen. Thank you for your, your invitation, thank you for, thank you to everyone at, at Schools for All, it's great to be part of this, this exciting event with Adrian and Pasi and everyone in attendance. Tonight, or this morning? I'm going to keep the… I just want to make sure that the, You're okay with the, the slides and the camera? It seems okay. So I'm going to keep the introduction to a minimum, because you'll see there's a lot of content, there's a lot of… of things to talk about. But I just want to say that when we started Econ Ensemble 10 years ago, we got a lot of international help from different groups, so if now our experience can be of some help. to you in Australia, we're really glad to help, even at, yeah, 6, 11 in the morning. So here's a, here's a breakdown of my talk. Pretty straightforward. I'll start by explaining our…

[00:10:08] Stéphane Vigneault

three-tier system. I'll explain the genesis of Econ Ensemble. then it's our journey to our policy proposal, the plan that we're putting forward, and at the end, I'll try to talk about some strategic insights or lessons learned along the way. So, first, an introduction to our three-tier system, and maybe a little Quebec 101 to start with. So, Quebec is one of 10 provinces in Canada. There's 9 million Quebecers. ChatGPT tells me that it's as big as Queensland, so… You can judge if it's about right. In terms of mother tongue, 75% of people speak French, 8% English. 14% other languages. 2% of Quebecers identify as native or Indigenous. There are 10 First Nations, and the Inuit nation in the north. So Canada is a federation. We have a British parliamentary system like you, so you're familiar with the dynamics of this kind of federation. And in our case, education is a provincial matter, it's… only provincial, there's no… I know you have, for example, the Commonwealth government in Australia, I think, has tax shelters, for…

[00:11:39] Stéphane Vigneault

for fees for private schools, so we have none of that. It's… everything is strictly provincial, and so there… there is no Canadian education system. There really are 10, education systems. So, like Caroline was saying, Quebec has a three-tier education system. We call it, in French, ecosites. So, a three-speed school system. So I'm gonna explain to you these, these three, these three speeds, these three kinds of schools. So, first off, the subsidized private schools. They have a 20% market share. They are… People call them private school, but they receive public funding, to the tune of 75%. That's about a billion dollars every year that taxpayers Give to these, subsidized private schools. They have, an immense privilege, that is, they can select and expel the students, from their school. So, they choose students with money, of course, it's about $5,000. To get in, but it can be more than that. And then they have entry exams, or they ask for grade reports from previous years, so they select who they want. And of course, they have an aura of superiority, because they have

[00:13:13] Stéphane Vigneault

Better attainment. But, you all know that. Of course, if you choose Better students, you will have better grades, so there's… there's nothing ambitious about that. So that's… that would be the first, speed in our system. Then comes, selective public schools. So these schools came to be when, public schools realized, that was in the 80s, I would say, that there was a big problem, there was a structural problem, and that public schools were being skimmed of their best students by subsidized private schools. So when they realized that, they could have fought the privileges and say, no, no, this is not fair, it doesn't work if you get to choose and we don't. But instead of fighting those privileges, they said, we're gonna… we're just gonna compete on their turf, because they understood clearly the competitive advantage that Subsidized private schools had, which is exclusivity. So they decided to compete on that turf. It's pretty easy, you just need to ask for money, ask for exams, ask for grades. So that's when a series of

[00:14:32] Stéphane Vigneault

what was called Trege Particulie, so special projects, so school, complete schools with a special project, or parts of a school. So those projects could be sports, arts, international. whatever, you know, it could be Scrabble, the idea is that you don't get in the school, without paying or without, being, selected. And… So, they charge money, they're public, they're still public school, but they charge money. $400, $4,000, $14,000, it can get pretty… pretty expensive. So these schools currently have a 25% market share. And so that creates automatically the third speed, the third track, regular public schools, So, these schools, of course, because they don't select, because they have to accept people from their neighborhood, they have an over-representation of pupils with difficulties, pupils coming from underprivileged families. So roughly 50% of kids, attend those, those regular public schools. The consequences of this system will not surprise you. Quebec has the most socially segregated system in Canada. We have the highest dropout rate.

[00:16:05] Stéphane Vigneault

dropout rate of students, but teachers drop out as well. At least, and it's a minimum, at least a quarter of them leave the profession in their first 5 years on the job market. And, well, you're aware of that, an unfair system also has impacts on health, physical health, mental health, social cohesion, productivity, so, these, these things are pretty consistent, internationally, every time you have Schools that are allowed to, to select their, their, Clients, or you could say their pupils. A few words, now on, on Ecolmes, so the association, how, how it came to be. So it started here, in, in, in my house, yeah, 10 years ago or so. It started when my daughter. arrived at, was leaving kindergarten, was arriving in elementary school, so she was gonna attend the neighborhood school just a few meters from here, at which is the school I attended, when I was her age. And so when she got to the school, I saw that all the parents were talking about one thing, and it was…

[00:17:28] Stéphane Vigneault

Hush hush, you know, are you doing it? We're thinking of doing it. Oh, your neighbor may do it? And I was… I had no clue what people were talking about, because, yeah, it was… it was my school, and there didn't seem to be any problem at the time. But now everything… Those parents were talking about was… What they were talking about was… The exam that kids could try to take. And if they succeeded, they were allowed to leave the neighborhood school to go to another public school, but a selective public school. so-called international schools. And so everyone was talking about that. I think it may be because it was my school, and it was not like that in my time. I quickly understood, you know, what was going to happen, that… The community we were building, you know, from kindergarten, parents knowing each other, was just gonna be destroyed by people trying to find something better for their kids.

[00:18:29] Stéphane Vigneault

And so, I tried to bring parents together to say, okay, let's… let's stick together, we have a great thing going, we're gonna have a great… community, school, a great elementary school, and so let's… let's not go, let's not do that exam. So I thought it would be kind of easy, I would play flute, and people would follow me, we were gonna… yeah, burned down the international school, but it didn't work at all. Every parents were hesitating and saying, like, oh, well, you know, my daughter, maybe she needs an extra stimulation, and We'll do the exam, and we'll see after, so everyone wanted to kind of… to keep that card in their pocket. And so then I realized that we had a bigger problem. It was not just our school, it was… it was systemic, it was provincial-wide. And yeah, so I kind of… Turf. saw that my attempt failed, and I said, okay, well, I tried, I'm gonna write an article about it in the newspaper and kind of call it quit after that.

[00:19:39] Stéphane Vigneault

And so I wrote this article, it was published in Laplace, Montreal Daily, and to me, that was the end of it. But then what happened is that parents found me on Facebook. I started receiving messages, and people were saying. thank you for your article, thank you for putting words on it. I'm trying to talk about it here in my neighborhood, and people look at me like I'm from outer space. etc. And then people were always asking at the end, so, what can we do? You know, what can we do about this? And I had no answer. Really, I didn't know what we could do about it. But the question stayed with me. I had works… I had worked in politics a little bit before, so… and federal politics in Ottawa, so I went to see old colleagues, people in other party, mostly people who live in Ontario, you know, across the border, who… don't really know about our system, or have no, you know, are not…

[00:20:41] Stéphane Vigneault

no passion or anything about it, and so I explained our problem, and for them it was really clear. They were like, well, do you have a political problem? One way to go about it is, you know, have a campaign. Two or… one, two, or three demands, keep it short. And, and tried to change policy. So… that's what we did. Saw a group of parents from here, and we connected with other parents in Montreal. We launched O'Connor Sam in 2017. The timing was good, it was just before the 2018, provincial elections. And we started with Demands, like, people, like, suggested to me. First one was to end funding for, subsidized private schools, and end selection in public school. Note that these were two negative demands, huh? And… and something. So I'll talk about that later. So we kind of, yeah, we launched O'Connor with these requests. We had a clear mission statement at the beginning, that we've kept throughout.

[00:21:55] Stéphane Vigneault

So it's still the same, you know, our mission is for Quebec to have a fair education system by eliminating the school segregation caused by subsidized private schools and selective public schools. I think it's very important to have a clear mission. And stick to it. I'll give you an example of Why it's important, because from the get-go, you know, we included the issue of selective public schools. in our mission. And this was kind of new, because there had always been a… a little debate about private schools, you know, the older position. Bad private versus good public. And so when we started to say, no, no, well, selective public schools are a problem too, and we started to talk with people we thought would approve and would help. some teachers' unions, for example, for example, and they were like, go after private schools, that's fine, but public schools, you know, leave them out. Start with private, and we'll see later about public schools, because they would see those schools as kind of the only tool they had.

[00:23:08] Stéphane Vigneault

But for us, because of our mission, the fact that it was clear. We're like, nope, we have… we're including… public schools in our mandate. You know, with selection, it can come from private schools. Public schools, it's as bad. On one side or the other. So that was an important… point, maybe a lesson from the get-go. Another important one was to, not blame parents. We saw that asking parents individually to do the right thing by choosing their local, regular public school, that was bound to fail. Parents… parents want the best for all kids. They also want the best for their kids, and if they are faced with a dilemma, they'll choose their own kids, so… It was important for us to shift the blame From the parents' shoulders, and put it where it belonged on our elected official. officials and go after a… work for a structural, collective, political solution. So that's an important lesson we learned, from the get-go.

[00:24:19] Stéphane Vigneault

So, that was kind of our first phase, so how do we get from that to our current position with our current, proposition, our current plan? Well, basically, by… by campaign… campaigning on our initial solutions. In 2018, we got a lot of comments. A lot of nasty comments, but also some well-intentioned, but we took notes, we took note of both. And, and, and… the proposal that we had, so end subsidies to private schools, was met with a lot of questions, tough questions, good questions. People were asking, well, if if… what happens if they close, you know? Public schools are already full, so where will the kids go? Also, many questions revolved around the transition and the fees. People were like, well, okay, my son is in secondary too right now. if there's no subsidies next year, the fees will raise to $5,000 to, what, $15,000, $20,000, $25,000? You know, I cannot afford that. So that's, of course, an extremely important point. Also, we realized that legally.

[00:25:36] Stéphane Vigneault

private schools have a right to exist. It's in our Charter of Rights, it's in the UN Declaration, even, so nationalizing them would not work. You know, we would lose that fight in court in a few minutes. So, that initial campaigning made us realize that we had a lot of work to do. And so we also realized that, you know, opposing something can only take you so far, and at some point, you need to go from opposing to proposing. So, yeah, we needed a real plan, we needed money to work on it at that point. we worked… we were all volunteers, you know, working at night when the kids were asleep. And… and luckily, in 2020, we found money, from a foundation, the Chagnon Foundation here, it's the biggest, foundation in Quebec. They want to, work on lowering poverty through education, so we fitted with their vision, their mission. And so, with their support. amazing support, I must say. Not only money, but…

[00:26:51] Stéphane Vigneault

you know, tips, ideas, contacts. So, with that help, I could just myself get a salary. So, basically, the, the idea was to put all the pieces of the puzzle On the table, and, and, and try to reshape Place them in different places to get to a politically attractive solution. It was the pandemic, everyone was online, so it was a good time to talk to people, and that's another important lesson that we learned. It's important to talk to everyone, even people you think may be your adversaries. It's good to talk to them, understand… you know, they have an official position. They're like, we don't want change. Okay, but what's behind it? And so we were able to gain good knowledge by talking to people even that, you know, we thought would not be allies from the get-go. And just having that conversation builds… basic respect, like, people see where you're coming from, what you're trying to do. And in the long term, you know, it's an important asset to have.

[00:28:14] Stéphane Vigneault

It's for your, for your credibility. So we worked on, on the plan for about 2 years, and yeah, here it is. So we launched, we launched the, the plan for a common school network. So that's the French version, but you have it in English on our website. And so since we launched this, and now we have a clear policy proposal, our work has changed. So we've switched to promoting the plan. And our goal in FinE is to have the plan included by political parties in their platform. By the way, our elections will start today, so the timing of this, of this battle is really good, so the Prime Minister will go see the Governor General soon, and ask for new elections. It should happen in a few hours. So, what's in this plan? So I'm gonna try to summarize it. Briefly for you, so if… there's a few slides just to explain, a bit more easily how,

[00:29:22] Stéphane Vigneault

How it's structured, so… I'll try to see if I can… changed, yeah, so I… I take it you can see those… those slides, so… The common network was so… What we're proposing is that we create a common school network. That common network will protect public schools and contracted private schools from the school market. So imagine a kind of umbrella. There's a big rain, but under the umbrella, protected are public schools and contracted private schools. And outside, in the rain, non-contracted private schools, so those… the schools will have the choice between the two statuses. But let me give you a bit more details about those two. Those two stats, contracted and non-contracted. So, first off, contracted private schools. So, if a current private school chooses to become contracted, it means that it will be subsidized at 100%, by the state. So, same amount of subsidies as a public school. So this means that they will be free, so no more tuition.

[00:30:38] Stéphane Vigneault

So it will be the end of selection by money, but also the end of selection period, so no entry exam, no asking for grade reports or anything else. So, in effect, those schools will become neighborhood schools. They will educate, Kids who are, allocated to them, if you will. They keep their… they will keep their current legal status. Most of them are non-profits, there's a few co-ops, so that remains. They keep their management autonomy. Basically, they have a board, so that will stay. The board will choose the director, so this autonomy remains. And they have to be non-for-profit. There's really few… Current, private schools who are for-profit. But we just want to make sure that it's clear that these contracted public schools cannot be for-profit. So, if a current private school says, you know, I don't want that deal. I don't want to be in the common network. Well, then they can choose to be a non-contracted private school. So, you've guessed it, if they choose that status, well, they do not receive any public funding, so that means that they will charge the full tuition.

[00:31:57] Stéphane Vigneault

$10,000, $20,000, $30,000. Whatever, they would… they get to continue selecting their clients. And one thing that's important is that although they will not be subsidized by the state, they are still regulated. By the state, so teachers will need to have a given training, they will have to follow a program, so they cannot go and teach that the Earth is flat or anything like that. If you look to Ontario, they have a clear manual of rules for private schools with, penalties per day, per student, if, you know, the said rules are not followed. So, the point is that it's not because they're not subsidized that they're kind of suddenly going out of control. So, maybe just to, summarize, in the Common Network, students are matched with their local common network school via a catchment area, but it will be a fair catchment area, so… hold that thought, and I will give you a bit more details about that in a minute. But for now, let's remember that in the common network, the school market ends

[00:33:16] Stéphane Vigneault

School do not choose their clients, not with exam, tuition, neither will they select based on ethnicity, gender, or religion. So, for example, on religion, if a school says. we want pupils who are Catholic, or Muslim, or whatever, well, that means that they are selecting. And if they are selecting, well, they cannot be a contracted private school. So automatically, they become non-contracted, and they have no public funding. So we solve the issue of security. Via the question of selection. So the basic principle is quite simple, you know, if public funds are involved, it must be in the public interest, so… I mean, everyone can understand that. So usually when I present the plan to elected officials at that point, they're like. Stephane, this is amazing, but it must cost a lot of money, right? And yeah, of course, we had the same question, so we gave our plan to an economist at the University of Sherbrooke, Francois De Lomme, he's a well-known economist, and we said, Francois, this is the plan, this is what we want to do.

[00:34:37] Stéphane Vigneault

Can you cost us this plan? And so you see the dynamic, is that a current school that will become contracted will cost more money to taxpayers, going from 75% to 100%. But a, non-contracted private school will go from 75 to zero. So those are… those are pretty good savings. So, the report, The Economist. Made a report, and came out with, basically the budgetary impact of the plan. This is just a short summary, but in yellow, you see the savings that we will make because of non-contracted private schools. about $500 million every year. In red, you see the extra cost of contracting private schools, so about $400 million. And in black, the difference, so savings of about $100 million every year. Of course, on a budget of a few billions. 100 million is… it may be not… may not be that big, but… You know, we'll take it, and also we change the narrative. Because we… here, we've been hearing for many years, private schools, save us money. No, you know.

[00:36:01] Stéphane Vigneault

the Commonwealth Network will save us money, and now we have it costed, we have it on paper. And, oh yeah, one thing I should mention, maybe you're asking yourself. okay, how do you know how many people will be in a contracted or non-contracted school? So, we have no crystal ball, but what we decided to do is compare ourselves with Ontario. And Ontario has about 6% of their kids in private schools, so that's the figure we used. For our, our calculation. the budget… the budgetary report is online. You can have a look. There's a lot of scenarios, like Ontario minus 1%, Ontario plus 2%, so all the numbers are there, but we think this 6% figure is the most probable. A few words now on the, the transition. Oh, sorry, I clicked one too far. So the question of transition, it's a bit technical, but it's really important, so I really want to talk to you about it. I know this table is a bit small, but…

[00:37:21] Stéphane Vigneault

the first table on top is what happens to a currently private school that becomes to… that becomes contracted. So what happens to the kids? So you see in the first, column, it's what's happening currently. So, kids are selected. And, they have a subsidized, the tuition fees are subsidized for everyone. So, what happens in year one? is education is free for everyone, so it's the end of fees for everyone in year one, in year one. So that means that if you had budgeted a secondary school diploma, you know, at $20,000, well, it's gonna cost you less, and probably a lot less. So this, politically, is very important for parents, to understand that they… They… their school is now free. In terms of who goes to that school, well, if you were there, you just continue, you were in secondary one, you go to Secondary 2 with your friends and your teachers, same school. The only difference, you see it in blue in year one, so secondary one kids come from the catchment area. So they're the first

[00:38:35] Stéphane Vigneault

Year to come from the catchment area, and then year 2, year 3, until year 5. They all come from the catch bacteria, so it's a really gradual process. Now, let's look at option 2 if a subsidized private school decides to become non-contracted. So in year one, Everyone who was in that school, have a… maintained their subsidized tuition fees. So there is a kind of grandfather clause, I don't know if you say that in English, but, they have an exception, and they… they will… they enter the school with subsidized tuition fees, and they will exit with it. So there's no, tariff shock. for these families, because they could have said, hey, no, I got in this, it was supposed to be $5,000, and now suddenly you're telling me it's $20,000? Doesn't work. So by keep telling them, no, you got in at $5,000, it's gonna continue the same way, so politically, that's really important. And it's only the secondary one kids getting in in year one, who will pay the full tuition fees.

[00:39:43] Stéphane Vigneault

And for them, you know, there will be… there will not be any surprise. They know, okay, this school now costs 20K, so they get it, and they sign a check, and there's no surprise for them. So you see, this transition is politically very important. We're now on the fair school map, so… remind… a reminder is that students are matched with their local school via a catchment area. So you have one address, one catchment area, one school. The challenge with that, when we were working on the plan, many researchers in Europe told us, you know, your plan is great, but be wary of residential segregation. You know, if you have a school in a rich neighborhood in the south. And another school in a poor neighborhood in the north. You may have a nice common network, but… residential segregation will make so that you have no mixity in your school, you will maintain social segregation. So, of course, this challenge is a real one, it's important, and we were lucky to find a solution to it.

[00:40:52] Stéphane Vigneault

In Switzerland, a system called Optimize Catchment Arias Basically what these optimized catchment areas do is, it's an optimization process. They try to optimize three things. First one is the distance between home and school. You want it to be as as small as possible. Second, you want to reflect the school's capacity, size-wise, so some schools have 500 students, others have So, that needs to be in the calculation. And also, you want to optimize the fact that you want the schools to be as socio-economically similar to each other as possible. So in my north-south example, you would instead do a east-west map. So suddenly, people are as close as they used to be. But on paper, you can see those two schools are now socio-economically similar, and that's the goal. You want to show that to everyone, you know, the schools, they're the same. So we asked the Swiss company Who does the… design, designs those maps in Switzerland to do one for us, so we could show what it would look like here.

[00:42:12] Stéphane Vigneault

So we, we choose to do a case study for a city called Laval, close to Montreal. It's an island. I think it's about 300,000 people. So this was our case, test case. So, I'll explain to you how it works. So, the first map, here on the left. You see the city of Laval, with dissemination areas. So it's the smallest. Section of the city. And we included the social-economic criteria in it. which was school-aged children, families, with a university degree. So in orange or red, families have no university degrees, and in blue are green. every family has a university degree, so you can see the city is quite diverse. It's gonna be the same for big cities in Australia or everywhere in the world. So this is kind of the social makeup of the city. So now, if you look at The optimized school catchment areas. Basically, all the schools are on the map. The yellow, sorry, the blue stars are the public schools, the pink stars are the future contracted private schools, and so the algorithm starts by allowing each school its catchment area based on geography, proximity.

[00:43:43] Stéphane Vigneault

And then it does a second round based on equity, so it wants to make sure that the social-economic criteria is well-balanced. And at the end, it achieved its goal, so we have every catchment area within, plus or minus 5% of the average. And we have an average home school distance of 4 kilometers, which is quite small, you know, with… North American or Australian standards. So… this was an important step for us to show that it works. It works in Switzerland, but it can work also in the North American environment with bigger, bigger distances. And it opens an interesting argument, because When we got that figure of 4 kilometers, we… a lot of people were asking, okay, well, how many kilometers now? You know, do you save… what, you know, do you save time? What's happening with that? And we didn't know. We asked the government, and we couldn't get any figure. But we recently commissioned a study to look at that and try to tell us, you know.

[00:44:50] Stéphane Vigneault

how many kilometers are kids doing right now, and what do we gain? And so we, we had a study made. I don't know if there's a slide for that. Yeah, the De Lorm La Joie study that was published in, Just last June, And it showed that We were able to reduce distance by 40%. Which means that we get… we would get 65% more kids being able to walk or bike to school. We would reduce gas how do you say that? Greenhouse gas emissions by, 35%. So it opens up a completely new, area of arguments in favor of a common school. So this, this, this… We have, we have an English, summary translation of the executive summary for those who are interested. So that's… so we have all the little drawings there. So that kind of, ends my… my presentation on… on the, on the plan, per se, so… Mark, you can, you can, remove the, the slides.

[00:46:05] Stéphane Vigneault

If you, if you can. So I'll briefly finish with some strategic insight and a few lessons learned on the way. Because while working on this policy, we also had to work on the public debate, because I didn't really mention it, but… this topic was completely, almost completely taboo in Quebec. It was the case even, like, 10 years ago. the extent of the debate was that every 5 years, one Member of Parliament would say, okay, something is wrong with private schools, and then another member of parliament would get up and say, but you went to a private school, so you're a hypocrite, and the debate would end there. So it was really childish. So for us. getting that public debate started was important. Shedding light on the issue was crucial. This… this issue was… was… so strong, because it was always in the shadows, if you will, so putting light on it was crucial. Putting words on it was important too, so…

[00:47:11] Stéphane Vigneault

for example, saying they're not private schools, they are subsidized private schools. So getting that vocabulary out. repeating and repeating and repeating it was also important. So people, you know, if you call them subsidized private school, suddenly your outlook changes completely, and the solution becomes more obvious. I remember being at a teacher's presentation, you know, at the beginning, and teachers would come to me and say. Thank you for putting words on what we were living, and we didn't know how to express it. So, just to show you how undiscussed the issue was. Sorry. Also, one thing that we did at the beginning was trying to get well-known public figures to speak about the issue. So asking people, you know, can you write an op-ed about this? And so that got the ball rolling. Another thing that we did was to try to find data. So, access to information requests, to get data, to give it to journalists, and then they can write about it.

[00:48:20] Stéphane Vigneault

Another thing that we did was to conduct our opinion polls, again, give it to the media so they… they can… they can tell people, this is what you're thinking, you know, you should… we should be talking about it. Another thing that we did was kind of take apart the official numbers, for example, our social-economic data. the one that is provided by the government is extremely weak, so explaining that publicly, you know, the government has these figures, but they're really worthless. We should be asking for real socioeconomic data, so things like that, taking that part of these official numbers. Also, other things we did more recently with the election coming, like I said, starting today. So we… we had a publicity campaign. We launched two commercials this year. We had a book. Our, our vice president came out with this book two days ago, of course, just in time for the campaign, so, a book about her own experience and the solutions to the problem. We have,

[00:49:31] Stéphane Vigneault

an initiative coming, I can't say too much about it, but it's something like Influence the Leaders Debate, so this will be coming in the coming weeks. So, yeah, really, with these initiatives, I can really see now the shift The shift in public discourse has happened. The work starts to pay off. You know, people write public opinion letters, open it on their own, we don't need to ask. We see sometimes surprising letters, like. People, retired people coming from the public sector saying, you know, we worked so hard all these years to have special projects, selective projects in our schools, and now we see that we were wrong. So this kind of admissions, you know, was unheard of before. We have unions, you know, who invited us to meet their members. We got a call last year from a party, an opposition party, who said, hey, we want to transform your plan into a bill, so this has happened, so the resources of the National Assembly were put to work.

[00:50:37] Stéphane Vigneault

to transform the plan into a bill, so it's Bill 895. Of course, it's an opposition bill, so it's on the shelves right now, but… Everything is written down, so we're… we're one vote away from… from changing the system. Also recently, two… the two biggest teachers' unions, endorsed the Common Network. We see things, and it's just not us, like, there's an author published a book about school segregation, a bit like Jayne Caro did. It was published a year ago, and it's being reprinted because of its success. The author is on a never-ending book tour. Other grassroots organization. choose equity in education as their most important issue. So, it's not just us, you know, the whole society is kind of… of brewing. So, yeah, basically, what can seem stuck Can be unstucked, But our work is not done. But I can see the progress, I can tell you that in 10 years. there was… there's been huge progress, and the support is building, and it's only growing. So,

[00:51:50] Stéphane Vigneault

an alternative is achievable, via, via collective action, via political, collective action. And yeah, we're, we're in this to win. You know, this is not a feel-good thing, or being righteous, or anything like that. We have a mission. It's clear we want to win, and we're going to win. So…

[00:52:12] Caroline David

John, you've been… you've been so inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing all of your, work in Canada. I'd like to, throw over to Adrienne Piccoli now. Adrienne. You've been the Minister for Education for 6 years, 2011 to 2017. What's your take on the work of Stephane and your own view of what's happening in the education landscape now?

[00:52:34] Adrian Piccoli

Well, I think it's fantastic, and I mean, all credit to you for getting… to getting so close. What did you say? One vote? one boat away. I mean, having been a former… Minister, I… I do understand the… public response to this. I mean, people are very emotional about their children's… or very passionate and emotional about their children's education. And I think you're right, people have a view about what they think. Education for all children should be, but that's not necessarily the same thing they think the education for their own children should be. And that's understandable, like you said, you know? People care about Children in the, in the, in the many. But they care most about their individual children. So I think it's remarkable how… how close you are to actually achieving it, because I was listening to you thinking about, you know, the political response in Australia. To the equivalent proposition. And, you know, we'd suggested something similar, not quite as sophisticated as what you've put forward a few years ago, but, but only for primary schools, that all primary schools ought to be publicly… ought to be publicly

[00:53:44] Adrian Piccoli

Funded, But the only… the other thing I'd add to that is, and I say, again, I say this as a former… Politician, with my foreign politician hat on. I… making the case that it's actually in the interests of particularly the faith-based organizations that run these schools, that it's actually in their interests as well. not chasing fees, I mean, and I can only speak in the Australian context, there'd be lots of… Catholic, kids who can't afford to go to a Catholic school, can't afford to go to an Anglican school, or whether they're Islamic kids, or whatever, they can't afford to go to the faith-based private schools in Australia. So actually, a model like this makes it more attractive to actually the constituency of some of those… some of those faiths. And I imagine from a school perspective, not chasing fees. There's gotta be a big upside in that, too. So…

[00:54:45] Caroline David

Thank you. What hurdle do you think we've got before we get to that stage? What… not paying fees is a very attractive thing. Jane Currow mentions in her book that, school fees is in the top five reasons for bankruptcy in Australia. What hurdles might we have with getting faith-based schools to, come into a common framework?

[00:55:07] Adrian Piccoli

Well, it's gonna be at a… it's gonna be at a… at a… maybe a small P political level, I think. I think if you ask parents. I think most parents would be fine about it, think, oh, okay, I can send my kids to a Catholic school, and I don't pay any fees. you know, I don't think that's the problem. And I do recall from a few years ago when we flagged something like this, most of the pushback came from the hierarchy within the religious denominations. You know, they… You know, they do see, you know, I say this as a Catholic. you know, they see some value in… in actually being able to exclude some students, or… or I should say, maybe not exclude, but select their own students. So, so yeah, I don't think it's at a school level. I think if you asked a principal, they'd say, oh, please, may I never charge fees, and chase fees, and whatever else.

[00:56:05] Adrian Piccoli

Yeah, I think it's more at that, at that leadership level. They don't want to see it changed.

[00:56:12] Caroline David

Yeah, great. Thanks, Adrienne. I'm going to invite Pasi Sahlberg to come in. Pasi, you've mentioned in the past that Australia has great schools, but not necessarily for all students. How can you see a common framework being of benefit to all students, every student, every school, every opportunity?

[00:56:32] Pasi Sahlberg

Yeah, thank you, thank you, Caroline, and thank you, Stephane. It's wonderful to listen to you. We started these conversations with you many, many years ago, and I really want to, recognize your work in this movement, echo, and sample. I think it's a… like Adria was saying, that it's amazing how you have been able to push this forward. I think that probably the main… lesson this evening, from your presentation, Stephane. It's not, not, not the, the common, Framework or network, the school model, but how do you… how you advocate, how you push this thing through in a political system Like, in Quebec, for example. But going to your question, Carolyn, I think that this is one of those many examples in education where things look very different in theory than they look in practice. And I think, obviously, you know, it's very understandable when you listen to Stephane about this three-tire system that is really selecting and sorting students in the secondary level into schools, the system that becomes second-regulated. You have to do something about it.

[00:57:40] Pasi Sahlberg

And, you know, if you want to… if you want to enhance, strengthen equity in Quebec, Quebec being now one of the highest performing provinces in Canada, but as you said, Stephane, that you have the big issue there is the inequity, the kind of a spread, and we have… Australia has exactly the same thing. So you could actually say that we need something like… like the common network of schools, but my… my… my comment really is that I… I don't see… I don't see that we can move much further in this conversation, maybe the agency of your comment about the… the primary level Catholic schools amalgamated in a public system or network like this is something that could… could happen, but there's so many questions in in trying to… trying to implement that type of network, public school network model here in Australia. You know, one difference is that you… as you mentioned, in Quebec, you have about…

[00:58:38] Pasi Sahlberg

10% of kids going to private schools, about 20% in secondary level in private schools. Here in Australia, we have half of the kids currently in the secondary level going to non-government schools, and it's a very different… it's a very different challenge to beat compared to what you're having in Quebec. So, again, I think in theory, this is a wonderful idea, but I just can't see… and I'm saying this without any experience in kind of a political thing, Adrian can talk about that more, but I just can't see how this could be done in a way that it can be done in Quebec, probably much in an easier way than it can be done here, because we have gone so far already in the kind of a privatizing our system, where there are so many interests that the… many of the non-government schools have, that they… that why should they give away the things that they have right now? But I think this is not to say that we should stop, you know, trying something like this. I think probably… probably the… the Adrian's example of

[00:59:46] Pasi Sahlberg

what we tried to do with you and Konski Institute early, a few years ago, is something to start with. And I remember, Adrian, these conversations we had that, you know, if we want to… if we want to have a model that would be based on the kind of a common common public school network. We have to start… it's better to start it in the ways that we can do and get done, and then try to kind of enroll further. But otherwise, as I said, I think in theory, this is a… this is a model that we need, but in practice, I think this is the model that we will not be able to… put in place in practice, like… like Stephane and colleagues will be able to do in Quebec.

[01:00:26] Caroline David

Stephane, I've got a question, from our audience, and I, again, I invite the audience to, put your questions to the panel at hello at schoolsforall.au. How did your… so, Pasi has said that, he feels it very… quite difficult to implement this in Australia, but you've mentioned how a change in language, catalyzed the debate and shifted the dial in Quebec. In… We're asking, how did you change… what language did you use to change the perception of parents from… you know, you mentioned every parent wants their kids to have the best education. What was the language that you used to change the perception that this is actually good for my child, for every child in the province?

[01:01:10] Stéphane Vigneault

Yeah, it's a good question. I think usually when I start presentations to parents or anyone else, I mention, okay, my kids are in selective public schools. Okay, so we're not here to judge you, to blame you. And I see physically people kind of relax, and they're like, okay, we're not here to be… to be judged. So, this is an important first step to say, you know, we're all in this together, and it's not because you are… Entering the competition for this or that school, that you are in favor of the system. So I think that kind of opens up people's ears to start with. And then there's, yeah, well, just explaining a few things, like, we hear often the idea of choice, and you know, we… our previous government is like, oh, the families want choice, and of course, we all know of the school choice movement coming from the U.S, And something that I always repeat is that The schools have the choice.

[01:02:15] Stéphane Vigneault

the schools are the ones selecting. They have the choice. Parents don't have the choice. They have the choice to enter, the system, like, okay, maybe, but the choice, you know, schools have it. But, of course, the… yeah, the people who don't want anything to change. push… push that choice narrative, really strongly. I don't know, really, the… the… how it is in Australia, but we have a lot of foundations coming from the U.S. entering our public debate and trying to, influence people. And I actually, I have a little prop, something to show you. Something that they do to maintain the system is, school rankings. So, there's something called the Fraser Institute. It's a libertarian think tank, okay, so maybe you know about it. So, they create this school ranking. Based on grades, and then they give it to a big media company, and so it looks like that. So this is the biggest, biggest daily, I don't know if the focus is good enough, but it says the worst, the best and the worst schools in Quebec.

[01:03:31] Stéphane Vigneault

Okay, so this comes out every year, special, special, newspaper, web tools, pa-pa-pa. And so this is done so that parents feel anxiety, that they've, they're afraid. So it's… it works really well. But, so, there's a lot of people involved in trying to maintain the system the way it is. And this is one of the tools they have, so getting in there to explaining, okay, this is rubbish, people. Of course, if schools will select their students will have better grades, you know, take that newspaper and, you know, wrap your fishes in it, it's… So… so that's part of, of… Getting in the debate, and explaining, and… at some point, I think the, our, our, our point, you know, gets across.

[01:04:27] Caroline David

Yeah, thanks, Stephane. And, this one is for you as well, from Senator Penny Allman Payne. And she's… you're spoke… you're speaking about that the students are matched with their local common network school, with a school map. What happens if you're in a catchment, for example, in a Catholic neighbourhood school, but you don't want a Catholic education? You want a… as in Ontario, you want a French education or a secular education. How does this work for students in Quebec?

[01:04:55] Stéphane Vigneault

Okay, well, we don't have a, like, Ontario Catholic or Protestant, or non-dimensional system, dimensional. basically, people have to go to a French-speaking school. If you're… if you're Anglophone, you have the right to go to an English-speaking school, and then you have native schools run by the government, so you have kind of three layers of of, of maps. So in our system, again, a private school, could not be contracted If it wants only school… students of a certain religion. So, if you say, you know, I want only Muslim kids. You can. You can be a private school, but you… you cannot be contracted, because you're selecting. And so you will be outside the common school network, so you will not have a catchment area. You will get to choose your kid, your students, your clients based on religion, but this is not in the public interest, and so you will not get any funding from that. You're allowed to do it.

[01:06:07] Stéphane Vigneault

But you will not get funding from it.

[01:06:10] Caroline David

So, Adrian Piccoling said earlier that, you know, Catholic parents would like their kids to be educated with the faith that they've grown up in, and in Ontario, that works quite successfully as well. What do you think about that model, where people who have a faith, who want to be educated in that… retain that faith characteristic of a school, for example, is there a way that that could be in a common framework as well?

[01:06:38] Stéphane Vigneault

Are you asking Adrian, or me?

[01:06:40] Caroline David

Oh, sorry, I'm asking you, I'm asking you, Stephane, yeah.

[01:06:44] Stéphane Vigneault

Okay. No, no. I guess our, our history with religion is, is different than yours. Quebec used to be the most Catholic society in the world. It was nicknamed the Priest-ridden Province.

[01:07:02] Caroline David

Don't.

[01:07:02] Stéphane Vigneault

The Catholic Church was in charge of everything until the 1960s. The Education Department in Quebec was created in 1964. Okay, 1964. Before that, the Catholic Church was in charge. They were in charge of health, hospitals, the whole thing. In the 60s, we had the Quiet Revolution, with left-wing forces, nationalistic forces clashing with the church. And so we went from the most religious society in the world to probably the least one. And now, secure lairism, you know, laicite, there's no word for it in English, I think, but, secure liarism is an important value, and there's no support for subsidizing religious schools. So it may be different from… from the case… it may not be the case in Australia, but in our… in ours, in our society at this time. It's not considered to be in the public insurance to fund religious schools. We do it now in our system. People don't want it, but it's, it's, it's, it's there.

[01:08:16] Caroline David

Sure. Thanks for that. Pasi, I'm gonna, ask you the next question. The nature of our NAPLAN and ATAR system often reinforces systemic inequalities that result from funding in Australia. And it's easy to focus on the funding without considering how curriculum itself reinforces the segregation in our system. What's your thoughts on that?

[01:08:41] Pasi Sahlberg

Well, there are a couple of things included in your question. Obviously, the… the assessment, national assessment systems, can segregate, can lead to segregation, and I think we are… We are misusing our national assessment that we call NAPLAN here in a way that it is used to also, you know, in a selection of students, or parents selecting the schools for their students, and I think that that's something… again, in the Konski Institute with Adrian, we made a recommendation how to do that by shifting from a census-based national assessment More towards, sample-based assessments that wouldn't… wouldn't allow or… or… make it possible for… for that type of thing. ATAR is another thing, I think it's operating towards the end of the secondary level in that way. But, yeah, I mean, this whole Australian system, if the question is about that, is so complicated in a way that we don't actually have a system of education, we have a kind of a hybrid systems that operate in different ways, and both NAPLAN and this assessment

[01:09:56] Pasi Sahlberg

mechanisms in Australian system operate in different ways, depending on a little bit where you are. But I do think, you know, if the aim of this common network or framework is to have more equitable education system, and make sure that each and every student has an opportunity to flourish and thrive. And… if in the future we would be able to say that we have… we have a world-class education for everyone, I think the… the easiest and fastest thing to do that is to start to fully fund the public schools, and do something that Finland… that has been inspiring, Stephane, your model in your report, you mentioned that the funding system that… this whole construction that you have is actually inspired by what happened in Finland. We have a thing called positive discrimination of funding, or area-based discrimination in the Finnish way of funding schools. It's a very completely different system. And that's… that looks a little bit like a Konski model here, that is, like, a needs-based funding, but it goes much further than that.

[01:11:07] Pasi Sahlberg

Because it really recognizes, like, in a capital urban areas like Helsinki, for example, the schools that are clearly serving and catering more complex population of students, immigrants and lower education families and parents and so on, that they are… they are… they get, like, a targeted funding to have more stuff and have different social workers and health workers in a school. and simply because of the need to kind of work against this inequity that is growing everywhere. So I think that that is something that is, for me, it's… here in Australia, it would be the kind of a primary conversation here, that how… how do we defend our public school and… public school system as a, as a newcomer in Australia, I often say that we don't have public education here in Australia, we don't have private education either, because it doesn't… both of my boys go to government schools in Melbourne, but we pay a lot of money for that. We pay a voluntary contribution, thousands of dollars every year, we pay the uniforms and textbooks and everything else, so it's almost like, you know, having your children in a private school. And I'm also saying this as a

[01:12:19] Pasi Sahlberg

as a Finnish citizen, where public education means that everything is public, and the accountability is the public accountability as well, and the schools are controlled by the people. And that's why I still struggle here in Australia to understand that what are we talking about when we talk about public education? And that's why, for me, the primary thing is to get quickly all public schools, but particularly those that are catering more disadvantaged students to get fully funded, so that they can start to do what they do. And I understand this common framework thing, I think it's a wonderful idea, but there are some things that I think we need to do first.

[01:12:59] Caroline David

I'm gonna put this to anyone in the panel. A great question about how do we make progress on addressing segregation? So we know that we've got one of the most highly segregated schooling systems in the world. How do we make progress on addressing that? That's open to anyone.

[01:13:16] Adrian Piccoli

Well, I think this discussion about the structure of education, our education system in Australia is critical to that. I mean, the work that Michelle Brundages has done around… segregation in schools, and… and the… the segregation, or the… the,

[01:13:33] Caroline David

disadvantage.

[01:13:34] Adrian Piccoli

Yeah, the concentrations of disadvantage drive disadvantage further down. That's right. Concentrations of advantage don't necessarily drive the results up, because we're not excelling at the top end either. We're doing badly at the bottom end, and we're not exactly… you know, excelling at the top end. So it doesn't drive better performance, it only drives worse performance when you've got those concentrations. So I think, you know, in Australia, the debate has got to be framed in a sort of social, cultural, and economic argument. How can we sustain ourselves over the next 20 or 30 years if this concentration of disadvantage continues. Yes, from a schooling perspective, right, but what does that do for us as a society, politically. economically, I mean, we have suburbs that, you know, you segregate schools, you segregate suburbs. I mean, there's a bigger… and I think that is a conversation that… Politicians and public servants are interested in. I mean, I, you know, I think we follow the United States probably by 15 years or so, and, you know, the segregation there is deep, too.

[01:14:44] Adrian Piccoli

And it's, you know, it's now very political, and at a very dangerous level, I would, you know, just as an observer. So I kind of think that's where… that's the big picture argument. Then you're kind of forced to do something about it. Now, you know, can you do something as radical as what Stephane is talking about? Maybe not initially. But it is… but it… but, you know, I think you constantly have to be pushing towards, you know, what are the steps, what are the first things you do, what's the second thing you do, what's the… You know, and I think it's worth pursuing.

[01:15:16] Caroline David

Thanks. Prazier Stephane, have you got anything to add on how we address segregation?

[01:15:23] Stéphane Vigneault

I'm not sure I can… I can give advice for how it's…

[01:15:27] Caroline David

That's funny.

[01:15:27] Stéphane Vigneault

Australia, so maybe I'll leave. I'll leave that.

[01:15:30] Pasi Sahlberg

No, I mean, you know, if Adrian doesn't know, then who am I to say that I would have an answer to this?

[01:15:37] Adrian Piccoli

No, I do know. If we designed the Australian education system today, you wouldn't design it the way it is. So…

[01:15:44] Pasi Sahlberg

Absolutely. There's a gap.

[01:15:45] Adrian Piccoli

Between what it should be and what it is.

[01:15:48] Pasi Sahlberg

You've got a call.

[01:15:49] Adrian Piccoli

Definitely, I think, be trying to bridge that gap. Not easy, I get. There's lots of entrenched interests here. But it's… But you have to, I think as a society, have to do it. I mean, forget about school results.

[01:16:02] Pasi Sahlberg

What's.

[01:16:03] Adrian Piccoli

What's going to happen to our society if we keep doing this in Australia?

[01:16:05] Pasi Sahlberg

Yeah, but there's one thing, and I don't know if anybody can help me to understand that. I'm asking this, again, as somebody who came to Australia a few years ago, that we're still spending a lot of taxpayers' money to fund non-government schools that are already overfunded. they're often wealthy schools, and they have resources more than the standard, but we are still… still putting more money on those schools. So for me, the simple question would be that could we stop doing that, and not give the money to the schools that don't actually need it? And instead. channel that taxpayers, our money, to those schools who… who deadly would need it to do basic things there. And I think, you know, if we can do that, if we can stop… stop overfunding non-government schools that don't need that money much, and give that money to somebody else who is… who's needing that, I don't… I don't know what would be… what would be the kind of an easier thing to do than that. And that's, again, Adrian, that's a political thing, and you can… you can.

[01:17:03] Adrian Piccoli

Why not?

[01:17:04] Pasi Sahlberg

more about that, but, you know, for me as a parent and taxpayer in Australia, I just struggle to accept the fact that my tax money is going to places where people say that, thank you, we don't really need it, but we take it when you give it on the… put it on the table.

[01:17:21] Adrian Piccoli

So, Pasi is my favourite Finnish person. In the world. And I love him dearly. But where I disagree with Pasi about this is, sure, funding, but I think whenever the debate becomes about funding, it crowds out all the other issues in education, particularly in public education. I mean, why don't people… or why would people choose not to send their kids to a public school? maybe funding, but there are schools that have got more money. Some public schools have got more money than they can spend. Big… big bank account balances. There are some, you know. Yes, we need to fully fund, please don't get me wrong here, but there are other reasons why people don't go. It's behaviour in schools, it's the concentration of disadvantage, I mean, you know. parents don't want to send their kids to the school that they think has all the, you know, equity kids in it. I mean, this is just a reality of how people… how people think, right?

[01:18:22] Adrian Piccoli

And I think when we keep talking about money, we're not talking about… not talking about that. The performance of public schools? I mean, they're very rigid, structurally. Non-government schools are much more flexible. I mean, that… they are part of the reasons why parents make decisions, perhaps not to send their kids to a public school and to send them to a Catholic school down the road. So, yeah, I… this is what I have a problem with the… the… look, I've talked a lot about funding in my career, but it's not the only thing. And when we talk about it, you know, we're not talking about those other things that actually, public education actually needs to address, to be honest.

[01:18:59] Pasi Sahlberg

Yeah. I love you too, Adrian.

[01:19:03] Caroline David

Look, we've got a huge number of questions from the audience that we're not going to be able to get to tonight, but can I thank so much, Pasi, Adrian, and Stephane for your fantastic contribution towards this conversation? We've got a few slides to go before we wrap up, but we really appreciate the time, especially Stephane. It's still early in the morning for you, but your wealth of expertise and contribution to tonight's conversation has been fantastic, so thank you all so much.

[01:19:29] Pasi Sahlberg

Thank you, I'm speaking to you from Solomon Islands, so it's late.

[01:19:32] Adrian Piccoli

Me too.

[01:19:32] Pasi Sahlberg

Right?

[01:19:33] Caroline David

Oh, well done. Thank you, Pasi. We have a very international, episode tonight. So I do want to thank everyone who's joined us from across the world. There's… We know of lots of people in lots of different countries. Now what we'd like to do is to invite you to join with us to take action to create a better, fairer school system for all Australian children. Here's what we'd like you to do. On the slide, you can see a number of ways that you can engage with us at Schools for All Australia. Please be sure to register via our website if you want to be the first to receive updates. And here's how you can make a contribution tonight. The Independent Expert Panel on a Better and Fairer School System, which included Professor Sahlberg, recommended that governments commit to increasing socioeconomic diversity in schools. They recommended that governments commit to tracking and annually publicly reporting on The socioeconomic diversity of schools and systems by the end of 2025.

[01:20:33] Caroline David

To monitor the level of diversity and support further work to increase diversity. Three years later, governments still haven't acted to make this happen. If we want a better and fairer system, we must stop hiding from the data, and Minister Clare must implement the recommendations of the review that he commissioned. So we're inviting you to join us in emailing Jason Clare. your federal elected representatives, state education minister, and other state elected members, to call for them to finally act on this very basic recommendation. It's only a first step, but it's an essential one. We can't solve the problem if we can't measure it. A new review can open up space for a new public conversation, and this is the first step to system reform. We're delighted that you've been able to join us for this event tonight, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts on a better, fairer education system for all young Australians. Thank you all, and good evening.