Christopher Pyne has conceded he will struggle to persuade his state and territory counterparts to make science or maths compulsory in years 11 and 12.
The federal education minister raised the proposal during a meeting with colleagues in Brisbane on Friday, but it got a frosty reception and suggestions from other ministers that the subjects should be made “compelling rather than compulsory”.
State and territory education ministers also reaffirmed their concerns about the Abbott government’s plan to cut annual increases in school funding from 2018, which could shave about $30bn from projected amounts over the next decade.
These concerns did not result in any tangible agreement at Friday’s education council meeting, beyond a statement of principle in the formal communique that needs-based funding was important “for educational equity and ensuring Australian children and young people have access to quality education regardless of their location or economic background”.
Pyne said ministers had made progress on another of his agenda items: agreeing to further talks about how schools could help students at risk of radicalisation to try to prevent violent extremism.
Senior officials will compile information about current initiatives and identify gaps in prevention and intervention measures for schools. Ministers will then consider further steps at another meeting of the education council later this year.
It remains unclear what new programs could be rolled out in schools, but Pyne said the move was driven by community concerns.
“There are at-risk young people in our schools who are being groomed by our enemies overseas to act against Australia’s security interests, and the education ministers and I agree that this is something that we need to be across,” he said.
“In terms of the functional changes that might occur, that is not something that we decided on today … Some states are probably further advanced on this issue of at-risk youth than others and we need to find that out.”
News Corp tabloids ran a story on Sunday suggesting the federal government was exploring a “jihadi-watch” scheme, with teachers and students being “taught how to spot potential jihadis in the classroom”. But Pyne said on Friday that nobody “should trivialise the issue by saying we’re going to have a dobbing-in of other students”.
Pyne said the meeting had “made great progress” on pushing mathematics and science to the forefront of schooling, despite states baulking at the push for one of the subjects to be compulsory in years 11 and 12.
The communique included a general statement about the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) skills in improving Australia’s competitiveness and productivity.
Ministers agreed to collaborate on developing a national strategy for increasing Stem participation in schools, with senior officials due to report back on progress later this year.
Pyne said: “The commonwealth will continue to press for a consideration of whether it’s time to reintroduce science or maths as a compulsory subject in year 11 and 12 in Australia. That is not precluded by the decisions of the council today, but I think it’s fair to say that I have a way to go convincing all the state and territory ministers that that is what we need to do.”
Pyne said he wanted to start a discussion on the issue, and he believed it would take five to 10 years to make such subjects compulsory. He also said he wanted to make it clear that he was not talking about a requirement for people to do both science and maths but merely one of those subjects.
Susan Close, the education minister in the South Australian Labor government, said everyone agreed about the importance of Stem subjects, but differed on how to increase participation.
“Part of it, I think, is that we need to make it compelling rather than compulsory,” she said. “We need to attract students to it rather than the students being told it’s inevitable.”
Close said it was important that students wanted to study Stem subjects and raised concerns that a compulsory element could have a negative impact on year 12 completion rates.
“We want to students to finish school. I won’t support anything which imperils students completing school. That is the most important thing they can do for their future,” she said.
Close said the federal government’s plan to tie its school funding contributions to the consumer price index (CPI) from 2018 represented cuts in real terms because education costs rose faster than general CPI.
“We’ve had a fairly long-running campaign on the health and education cuts and we’ll continue to do that in every forum we can, including in ministerial council meetings like today,” she said.
Some ministers – such as the Labor representatives of SA and Victoria – wanted Friday’s communique to include stronger language about the cuts compromising the ability of states to provide high quality education to all students regardless of their location or economic background.
But the final document, while endorsing needs-based funding, contained only a vague statement about equitable access to education being “critical to achieving the ambitions of the reform of the federation”.
State leaders will pursue their complaints about the federal cuts putting them in an unsustainable financial position when premiers and territory chief ministers meet with the prime minister, Tony Abbott, for a Council of Australian Governments (Coag) retreat in July.
The New South Wales education minister, Adrian Piccoli, said the Coalition state government “remains committed to funding its share of the six-year Gonski agreement and continues to advocate for the federal government to honour the agreement in full”.
The federal Labor party’s acting education spokesman, Mark Butler, said Friday’s meeting would have been a perfect time for the government to abandon the cuts.
“The states and territories know how important the Gonski reforms are, parents and educators know how important the Gonski reforms are, and Labor knows how important the Gonski reforms are. The only ones who don’t seem to know are Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne,” Butler said.
