Abstract

This paper provides the perspectives of adult basic education (ABE) teachers on how they are responding to curriculum changes which form part of the regulatory regime referred to as the audit culture. The focus is on ABE programs conducted in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia where most accredited ABE courses are delivered. The paper indicates the many tensions ABE teachers experience between the compliance requirements of audits and their professional judgements as experienced ABE teachers. While responses vary, many teachers adopt an approach where they can comply with the prescriptive demands of audits, though often in a minimal fashion, and at the same time teach in a way that fits within their philosophy and practices as ABE teachers. In the classroom these teachers are seen to be ‘working the interstices’ (the small ‘spaces’) in the official curriculum. Concern was expressed, however, that future ABE teachers may not adopt such an approach.

Highlights

  • An interstice can be defined as ‘an intervening space’ or ‘a small or narrow space between things or parts: a small chink, crevice or opening’ (Macquarie Concise Dictionary 1992:506)

  • Compliance required verification in quantifiable ways that all elements of activities had been performed correctly, according to set standards, and that they would stand the scrutiny of auditors who may know little about pedagogical processes. This focus on accountability and audits of various kinds has clearly become a central feature of adult basic education (ABE) work

  • There are limitations to this paper in so far as the data were based on the selected comments of thirteen head teachers of ABE and recorded discussions in three focus groups totalling approximately thirty ABE teachers

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Summary

Introduction

An interstice can be defined as ‘an intervening space’ or ‘a small or narrow space between things or parts: a small chink, crevice or opening’ (Macquarie Concise Dictionary 1992:506). As I stated at the time, ‘It may mean giving the impression of playing the dominant game while diverting at times from the prescribed curriculum and engaging in a critical agenda’ (Black 2001:283). The context for such comments was the prevailing absence of critical accounts of Australian workplace literacy programs and the perception that adult basic education (ABE) teachers were not engaging sufficiently with the discourses of human capital and economic rationalism. One study of ABE pedagogy stated, ‘Their position could perhaps be characterised as a mute opposition beneath a passive acquiescence’ (Lee and Wickert 1995:145)

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