‘The deepening divide?’: Choices for Australian education

[Extract] The title for my address tonight-The Deepening Divide?-is actually the subtitle of a recent national research report on developments that have affected Australia's young adults during the 1990s (Dusseldorp Skills Forum 1999). The added question mark is, as you might assume, rhetorical. I fear that there is a deepening divide in Australian education, and I would argue strongly that being ever vigilant to the existence of this divide, being focussed on bridging the divide-is one of the most difficult, has always been one of the most difficult, challenges for education. And I see this as especially challenging for education today. The 21st century offers more than an explosion of fireworks: it offers an explosion of knowledge and an explosion of wealth. But we already have clear evidence that this knowledge and wealth will be unequally shared-and certainly not equally accessible. How we approach this problem-and how we see the role that education might play in addressing this problem-are key issues for educators in the next decade