“a key question for the future is how to lift the productivity of the education sector itself”

The switch to a services economy, relying on people rather than capital investment, makes productivity growth harder and so the previous government commissioned the Productivity Commission to advise on what could be done.

In an interim report released yesterday, the PC acknowledges “the importance of education in driving productivity growth through increasing human capital and creating settings conducive to technological breakthroughs and adoption.”

But it adds, “a key question for the future is how to lift the productivity of the education sector itself.”

The PC suggests,

* while high performing teachers are important, “a bigger question could be whether school systems are well configured to support existing teachers to deliver their best”

* “a strong focus on quality teaching in universities could also yield significant future productivity gains,” and

* technology could deliver a “higher quality outcome rather than more output, ” (it) “is likely to offer considerable opportunities for augmenting high quality instruction, assisting and guiding assessment and allowing students to undertake tasks previously not thought possible. This would be consistent with the past path of productivity growth in other sectors, with capital and new technology augmenting labour input,” the PC states.