Look Through Any Window

In the 2006 article, Australia’s Professional Excellence Policy: Empowering School Libraries, the author describes the current state of education and teacher policy in Australia through the lens of infrastructure dynamics and through student achievement 2003 results viewed favourably at the international level by OECD (Mitchell, p.1).

Although 8 states and territories have responsibility for the delivery of education in Australia (similar to the provinces in Canada) “…strategic policy at the national level is coordinated, and national agreements, on shared objectives and interests” (Mitchell, p.1). The current quality education agenda began in 1990, according to Baldwin, 2001 with much debate (Mitchell, p.1). Such alignments parallel somewhat the Western Canadian Protocol in the 1990’s and its policy direction on assessment in the core subject areas. To my knowledge, there is yet not bona fide national policy on quality education in Canada.

Mitchell observes that while teachers “look to standards to address quality improvement and to empower participants”, fiscal policy on the other hand seeks out quantitative measures and quality assurance (Mitchell, p.2), which is not unlike the provincial realities of teachers here at odds with politically driven agendas in education.

A Standards for Teacher Librarians project brought together in 2002 libraries and information services “to review current practice and to identify…professional development priorities for currency of knowledge and…best practice” (Mitchell, p.3). This event compares to the Canadian Association for School Libraries (CASL) where a The Role of the Teacher Librarian: A Checklist for the Future refers to “specialized knowledge of learning resources and technology” and “effective strategies for developing information literacy” (also BCTLA). The initiative sought out a national consensus on standards of excellence “to improve best practice… and to enhance student learning outcomes” (Mitchell, p.3). The result: a standards document after much consultation launched nationally at the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) conference in 2005 (Mitchell, p.7).

Reference is made in the 12 standards put forth to “have a specialist knowledge of information, resources, technology and library management” (standard 1.4); “incorporate transferable information literacy”(standard 2.2); “inform professional practice” (standard 2.4); and, “actively participate in education and library professional networks” (standard 3.4).

Although the focus in this scholarly article was upon quality development in policy, from a historical and political perspective, I must admit I was disappointed that the light did not shine through the Library 2.0 window more than a cursory mention in the standards document. Perhaps, stuff of another fabric as ‘policy statements on standards’ may go further in implementation, especially since 2006 as Web 2.0 spans all borders. Follow-up may be a good starting point in edublogging.


Bibliography:
Mitchell, P. (2006) Australia’s Professional Excellence Policy: Empowering School Libraries, School Libraries Worldwide, Volume 12, Number 1, January, 2006, IASL http://www.iasl-online.org/pubs/slw/slwjan06-mitchell.html