OFFICIAL DISCOURSES OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TWO SCHOOL SYSTEMS A paper prepared for presentation at the joint meeting of the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Singapore Educational Research Association Singapore, Nov 27 1996. Marie Brennan Central Queensland University1 In recent years there has been much discussion of the relationship of globalisation processes with education. Different perspectives have emphasised different aspects of these processes, with debates ranging from favourable to highly critical about the impacts and potential contributions to educational matters. Some researchers have been particularly interested in issues of the changing nature of the nation-state (Bartlett et al, 1991), others with the changing purposes of education, while still others have been concerned with the changing nature of work processes (Preston, 1994; Robertson, 1993; Seddon, 1991; Watkins, 1991). Other commentators have been more interested in promoting the self-managing school as a way to ensure that the nation's economic and business interests can be furthered (Caldwell and Spinks, 1992) while still others are highly critical of this approach (Smyth (ed) 1993). Discussions of educational reform in Australian circles, whatever their perspective, have tended to foreground strongly the connections of education with the social, political and economic arenas, leading to a broad literature on education and its changes as both a result of and a change within public sector shifts. What has been less well covered is specification of the links by which the articulation of educational reform to these broad agendas is to be or has been made manifest. While it is important to be able to show the significance of broad trends for the field of education, it is also important to be able to show the means by which the translation processes actually occur. Otherwise we are in danger of presuming that there is a simple and direct causal relationship between context and site, a danger we are warned against by Seddon (1994), among others. The specification of linkages may show effects quite different from what might be expected, as well as continuities with broader trends. As Appadurai (1990) argues, globalisation is a process of both homogenisation and differentiation; it is thus necessary to examine at quite a detailed level the ways in which initiatives work at particular sites in order to discern whether one or other process (or both) of homogenisation and differentiation is occurring. This is a particularly acute problem in the field of computers/new information technologies in education, since there has been in Australia so much public media attention to new information technologies in the economic and cultural spheres and also large scale faith and investment in them by parents, schools and school systems. In this paper, my purposes are three-fold: 1) to explore differences and similarities in the discourses used in official documents of two Australian state education bodies -- documents which are used to manage their self-presentation of the new information technologies; 2) to examine how these departmental discourses invoke broader social, political and economic concerns in order to justify their focus on newer information technologies; and 3) to discuss implications arising from my analysis for further research about new information technologies in education. The two state departments in question are those of Queensland and Victoria, both of which have large scale investment in developing computerised administrative systems and projects to promote the use of computers for teaching and learning. Here I consider Queensland's introduction of its School Information Management System (SIMS), with particular attention to the trialing of the school administrative package, the equivalent of which has been in place in Victoria for quite some time. In Victoria I concentrate on its classroom, teaching and learning focus, which is drawn out by emphasis on technologies as associated with the 'future'. I argue that while there are strong similarities in the two official discourses, in Queensland the justification for the use of the administrative and curriculum-related technologies is much more strongly resonant with accountable public sector management, an issue that is given greater prominence because of that state's particular recent history of corrupt governance. The state of Victoria's promotion of new technologies for schooling has been well orchestrated, and might perhaps be seen to result more from diverting attention away from school closure and cuts to the education workforce than to the intrinsic interest of the computers themselves, creating an image of an attainable 'future' in order to distract attention from a present which many in schools might be finding unpalatable. In the sections which follow, I first consider the main metaphors or rhetorical devices used in the Victorian School News (VSN), a weekly Department of Education2 newspaper which is provided to all schools. I then look at the policy trail by which the Queensland Department of Education (QDE) justifies its introduction of the SIMS, with particular reference to the implementation guidelines for schools, in addition to coverage in the QDE Education Views, this state's weekly newspaper put out for all schools. It is worth mentioning that there is a significant time lag between the two states in relation to new technologies and their representation in educational discourses, with Victoria well ahead in terms of a computerised administrative system, and providing much more coverage of the uses of computers in schools for curriculum purposes.3 Victoria: Schools of which future? The Victorian School News between 1994 and 1996 has reached almost saturation coverage of new information technologies. It is almost invariable that the front page colour spread and/or headers will contain reference to technology. In 1994, almost every main story and several other items inside this weekly paper for schools focussed on the benefits of technology and illustrated them by reference to a new government initiative, policies and school innovations. There are photos of smiling teachers being shown how to work computers or new applications, and smiling children engaged in computer based activities, often with male technicians and experts guiding the largely female teacher and student group in their work. There are also computer-generated logos for the multiple initiatives associated with different Departmental technological sites, virtual and otherwise. Schools of the Future (SOTF) has been the main policy of the Victorian state government for education, an umbrella policy which incorporates greater devolution of management responsibilities to the schools. Technological infrastructure for a range of these administrative responsibilities and for classrooms has been established in very visible ways from when the Liberal government first came to power in 1991. After announcing massive cuts to education, including closing and/or amalgamating hundreds of schools and organising thousands of voluntary teacher redundancies, the positive initiatives included the purchase and placement of a satellite dish on every school so they could receive transmissions of subjects such as second language teaching and professional development for teachers. Each week, the VSN carries a "SOFNet guide", the timetable for transmissions on the satellite equipment. The revision of the administrative software package for schools is now on CD-Rom, there is a helpdesk and dedicated fax line for addressing school's problems, a multi-media centre, and a special Internet site known as SOFWeb (www.dse.vic.gov.au). Paralleling "Schools of the Future" there is now an umbrella policy "Classrooms of the Future". All schools, through government initiative, are to be connected to the Internet by 1996, requiring professional development for teachers according to a private provider of training who advertises in VSN (VSN 3/33, Oct 1995, p.4, among others). There are also privately contracted service providers for when equipment breaks down and professional development programs for staff. The "future" has thus been built into the nomenclature of the technology initiatives. Front page coverage of a recent conference "Education Victoria '96" places Victorian schools within a global context: World Leaders in education say the role of teachers worldwide is changing as new technology and teaching practices expand opportunities for learning.... {A]dvances in telecommunications are breaking down conventional borders in education.... {S]chools throughout the world were facing quantum leaps because of communications technology and the push to glovbalise education" VSN 4, 29, Sept 96, p.1 In the lead up to the conference, there was celebration of best practice in Victorian schools (especially multi media initiatives and industry partnerships), plus the internationalisation of education in Victoria and links with the Asia-Pacific region (e.g. VSN 4/26, August 96, p.1). Even the regular Education Department's stand at the Royal Melbourne Show is dubbed "Cyber Station" in 1996. There the "Community Information Service and the Keys to Life Project Team presented a variety of commercially produced puzzles and toys for children to explore and investigate" (VSN 4/30 Sept 1996 pp.1, 3) to help parents educate their children in becoming technologically literate. The most obvious metaphors used throughout the articles covering schools and technology have been those of pioneering and navigation. The future is there, waiting to be discovered through the medium of the new information technologies. Teachers and student are constantly invited to investigate this new technology territory. The images strongly resonate with early white history books of the discovery of great new lands, bringing forth images of the great mythological heroes of history and screen, with teachers represented as the guides, the discoverers, the leaders of the expeditions. All the main cover stories of cyberspace, the Internet, multi media and curriculum developments around new technologies in 1994 and 1995 used the metaphors of navigation and pioneering. By 1995, there are "Navigator Schools", specifically designated technology schools leading the way for the state school system as a whole. The seven navigator schools will be supported by the Directorate of School Education (DSE) through intensive professional development and ongoing technical assistance. After a transitional period the schools will be ready to impart their knowledge to others, with each of the seven navigator schools acting as training centres for teachers in government schools VSN 3, 33, Oct 1995 p.1 The future is presented as waiting only to be discovered, in much the same way as Columbus 'discovered' the Americas, or Captain Cook Australia. However, as with those countries, the territory has already been mapped out by those already living there, but this is of course, not mentioned, just as those white invaders failed to take the existing inhabitants into their accounts of their voyages of 'discovery'. The kinds of 'places' able to be discovered are at least partly mapped out. They are the 'places' made available by largely USA-oriented search engines for the Net, by software companies and by hardware designed primarily for one user at a time, which restricts many of the curriculum capacities which might have been pursued as appropriate to good teaching and learning. These limitations are of course not raised in the official discourses. The ultimate irony of the use of the navigator and pioneering images is that these have strong resonances with the past, particularly the past of a country like Australia whose dominant mythology is largely created out of conquering the bush as pioneers. This resonance with strong past images is likely to be why the current incarnation of them is popular; although asserting continuity with the past is certainly not the point of establishing such an orientation to the future. It is clear that the future of the state system of schooling is seen to reside in success with new technologies. Such a "technologically rich" future requires continuing belief that there will be money for continuing investment in infrastructure such as hardware, software development and support services. This belief has been supported in Victoria by the continued government provision of new initiatives involving technology and in media stories about schools where such developments are occurring. The strong suggestions is that the 'future' is already here and is achievable by a range of schools. As demonstrated in relation to special purpose programs, schools are very good at working out where the money is and how to gain access to it. Now that there are few alternatives since special purpose programs have been eliminated and other forms of support are non- existent, it is more likely that schools will be seeking to develop initiatives which have a strong component of technology. Perhaps there is the added incentive with the public level of dissatisfaction with teachers and schools expressed in policy documents and governmental statements, that if they do not embrace technology there will be even less funding for education. Overall, however, the tone of the extensive coverage of the new technologies is invitational and upbeat, emphasising the positive benefits for students and teachers. Success is emphasised and shown to be rewarded with investment in the technologies and support infrastructure. Queensland: the accountable manager? Queensland Education Department has had a consistent line throughout its development of the use of new information technologies in the 1990s. The 1989 Labour Government, coming into power on the heels of a major inquiry into official corruption in the state, was concerned to establish a strong perception of public accountability. The early nineties management reform language, emphasising quality, organisational restructuring and efficiency measured through the operation of internationally recognised standards, has coincided fortuitously with this concern, providing a broad framework for discussion of new approaches to management throughout the public sector4. New information technologies have been built into this set of approaches, as the following extract from the Public Sector Management Commission (PSMC) makes clear: A major force changing administrative and business practices is information technology. Its increasing application to government work is having a huge bearing on the speed and cost of conducting government business and on the number and deployment of staff required. Equally, information technology has increased enormously the capacity of government agencies to assemble, transmit, store, analyse, process and retrieve information PSMC 1992, p.2 Without the speed and promise of full coverage achieved through technology, it is suggested, the level of accountability might be compromised. Such an emphasis has been translated into all sectors covered by government administration, including education, with massive investment in appropriate technology and software development or adaption, included within financial strategy plans and corporate plans across Departments. The connection between promotion of public accountability and new information technology has continued to be a high priority for governments, even after a change of party with a strong agenda for downsizing government expenditure. It is noteworthy that even though there have been significant cuts to the overall education budget, there is still a large amount devoted to the continued development of the School Information Management System, with a large infrastructure, and even some suggestion that a restructure of head office and regions will parallel the functional areas of the computerised informational system. The schools' version of information infrastructure required specific development of software for administration purposes, with a large development and support infrastructure, including specification of computers to all schools, representing a significant proportion of the annual education budget, much of which remains hidden within other items such as capital expenditure, professional development, support staff, furniture, and so on. The trialing of the first modules of the system have been postponed a number of times, as might be expected if other such initiatives can be used as examples, Queensland's School Management System "Pre-Implementation Planning Guide" (undated - but received by schools in June 95) explains that: a. The School Management System (SMS) is an integrated computerised administration package designed to automate many of the tasks common to schools. b. SMS has been built around a series of modules which group the administrative functions of the school in am organised and logical fashion ... c. Schools would be well advised to commence examining their current business practices and give thought to how these may be integrated into the SMS package. (SIMS Department of Education, Queensland 1995 p1). These guidelines and the existence of the infrastructure are themselves signals of the seriousness with which the Department - and the government - treat the information technologies as key to management reform. Schools' "business practices" and their integration into the total system is supposed to be already within the province of schools, usually principals. Minimum requirements in terms of computer size and configuration are specified. Instructions on which data already required on a previous computer-based system can be exported to the new system and which cannot is also provided. There is a significant list of data which cannot be directly or automatically converted from this previous system to SMS. Such a list would not be consoling to those in schools who have spent significant amounts of time complying with previous requirements and specifications, only to have to re-enter whole sets of data, for example, teacher duties, class scheduling, student exit information, student tests, progression details, or rooms. Such a clash might well undermine the school personnels' faith in the longevity and effectiveness of the incoming system, despite the efforts to ensure that its status is seen as both a formal requirement and something which is within the capacities of all schools and their personnel. An ambiguity around the significance of expertise is made evident in the Guidelines. While there is simple language used to describe the approach to be used, this is undercut by highly technical language at other points in the guidelines, sometimes immediately adjacent. For example, Category 5 wiring installed in schools will consist of 4 pairs of wires terminated with RJ45 connectors (these connectors look like the american phone connectors but with 8 contacts not 4). .... These problems probably won't occur with the type of loads you may put on the system at first (say 10 megabits per second) but may prevent the next generation of equipment (using the new 100 megabits per second Ethernet standard) from working at all. QDE u.d/1995, Attachment 5 p.3 The use of the technical language problematises the simplicity of the other explanations, making it appear as if technical knowledge is really needed to understand what is required. According to the guidelines, schools with more than one computer have to prepare their own briefing for new or upgrading installations for cabling, including a plan for the school's networking and specification of items as the basis for obtaining quotations from contractors. Many school personnel, when faced with the task of developing such a specification, will be unable to feel adequate to the task, even with the standards specified and drafts provided in regions. They are thus required to be dependent on personnel with greater expertise in areas of new information technology, especially hardware. The pursuit of accountability is therefore tied not only to the work of managers, at system and school level, but also very much to the technological infrastructure, including efficacious software and hardware and technically expert personnel. The work of principals is thus connected less to the professional content of any accountability measure than to its effective delivery through the operation of new information technologies. As my colleague, Lindy Isdale is able to demonstrate in her detailed study of early implementation of SMS, this linkage represents a real alteration in the kinds of work expected of principals and office workers in schools. In addition, it calls forth the need for other kinds of workers, in a symbiotic relationship with those school-based workers. Even those opposed to the use of the new technologies will be drawn into this relationship. Principals, for example, required to provide certain information and reports using the new technology, will be the first to complain if the support structures are not in place. The Department is mandating use of particular hardware and cabling, so that it can also mandate a common software package for administrative use. Since the requirement has the force of a legal administrative order, emanating from Department of Finance as well as the Department of Education, it is unlikely that any school will not comply. Whether their compliance will be adequate to the ensure that accountability documents occur in certain formats is yet to be seen. The issue of the reliability of any computerised technology (Latour, 1996) is yet to be shown, although early experience with this system suggest that it will require constant changes to iron out the 'bugs' (Isdale, 1996). This is not a problem peculiar to this Department or a fault of the designers, but one built into the nature of the technology itself (see Virilio, 1991) It is not only in their management practices that Queensland schools are to use technologies. By 1996, a similar shift to that experienced in Victoria is evident in Queensland's incorporation of teachers and classroom emphases in the School Information Management System. The Queensland Director General of Education has made it clear that he sees both management and classrooms as the focus for technological advancement, in an article entitled " Connecting our schools to the future". I believe that we can and we must embrace these new communications technologies if we are not only to prepare our students well to take their place in society but also to ensure that our management practices are as efficient and effective as possible Peach, 1996, p.2 What is made obvious here is the relation of the 'future' image to both management and curriculum/classroom operations. But it is marshalled to a different 'future' than that evoked in Victoria. Queensland's "Connecting Teachers to the Future" project is starting with less investment of capital and symbolic reach than its earlier Victorian counterpart "Classrooms of the Future". There is a more overt chivvying of resistant teachers, as distinct from Victoria's portrayal of the 'brave new world' of technology which invitingly awaits discovery by teachers. The chiding tone of the Director General in the same article warns: While many of us recognise the opportunities that these changes in technology offer, some of our peers continue to resist the 'new environment'. Peach, 1996, p.2 There is clearly an overt level of scepticism among the teaching population of Queensland for the Director General to make such a strong public statement against resisters. Peach's reference to "doubting colleagues" (1996, p.2) suggests that what is needed is an element of faith rather than convincing on rational, economic or hierarchical grounds, of the benefits of new technologies, although all these elements are present in his piece. It remains an implicit warning that other dimensions to enforce the uptake of technology can be brought into play when needed. Again the emphasis remains with accountability as the final arbiter of judgement about the uptake of new technologies in schools. It is an argument that might be running low on plausibility among school personnel after seven years of accountability initiatives. It is clearly one which is being short-circuited in Victoria where the arguments over school closure were successfully ignored in the same public newspaper of the Department that celebrated the diversity and opportunities offered by new technologies5. Perhaps the more recent move to formal articles by the Queensland Director General on classroom-oriented uses of new technology signals a departure from the emphasis on management (and hence a stronger automatic link with accountability issues). The emerging discourse however is unlikely to be in a similar vein to that used in Victoria since in Queensland there is more widespread scepticism generally expressed and less funding obviously spent. The next year should be interesting for continuing this study. Issues arising from the operation of the two official discourses The two official discourses are clearly not state specific, and elements of both future and accountability discourses are mobilised differently according to what is deemed plausible in the specific historical circumstances in each state. Both rely strongly on broader, societally popular debates on globalisation and the role of technology. Specifically mobilised are the millennial claims for salvation organised on behalf of technologies -- most clearly seen in the emphasis on future -- and the emphasis on government downsizing and efficiency. The emphasis on the reform of accountability could also be seen to reflect millennial hopes in salvation for the nation state through improved management. An overall faith in the role of technology to increase or improve Australia's economic position in relation to other nation-states, especially Asian neighbours, is reflected in the almost unquestioning belief in the efficacy of the new technologies to live up to what has been promised on their behalf. This millennial discourse does not include does not include evidence to back the claims. The most general achievement of both discourses is similar: the new information technologies have been successfully naturalised in the education field in each state. It is now almost unthinkable that schools would operate, either administratively or in classrooms, without computers. Technologies are 'normal' practice in schools in the mid 1990s. This is significant in that earlier attempts to introduce computers into schools have not been so successful (Bigum & Green, 1993; 1995). Computerised technologies, despite quite significant investments in early 1980s, remained relatively residual until the latest upsurge of enthusiasm more broadly in the society -- engineered by government and business -- provided a context for them to be made central to the education enterprise. Now school administrators cannot opt out of their own involvement, directly and indirectly. There is also significant reward in terms of money and kudos for those schools seen to play a leading role in promoting new technologies. There are significant problems in the two dominant discourses, some of which are also noted in the discourses about business and management in the "fast capitalist texts" (Gee and Lankshear, 1995) of the business world. The first problem is the continuing faith in the potential of science and technology to solve complex social problems. This has long been noted as an issue, particularly since the explosion of the atom bomb raised publicly the ethical and other consequences of assuming science ought to provide social remedies. Other commentators (e.g. Popkewitz et al 1986; Popkewitz, 1991) have argued that the instrumental rationality embedded in this faith in progress and in the redemptive role of schools associated with science has also been central to the project of mass schooling and to any call for its reform. The emphasis on information technologies as a focus for futuristic reform of schools, as part of the salvation of society, can thus be seen as only the latest embodiment of this normative faith in scientific progress. In educational terms, the direct benefits to students' learnings are only beginning to be questioned and understood. We still know very little about the different kinds of learning associated with the new technologies, and, as Bigum and Green (1995) point out, many classrooms are using the technologies to complete glorified pen and paper tasks. These are also, of course, the cheapest forms of software to develop and there has not been the capital available for the development of truly educational software except in the minority of cases. However, there is, as Victorian experience suggests, much capacity among teachers and students to innovate themselves and develop the field of education. The question of intellectual property rights in this regard are only beginning to be addressed. The changes to the "new work order" (Gee et al, 1996) have generally been discussed more in relation to deskilling and to the replacement of blue collar workers with robotic technologies. For professional groups, who are traditionally understood as 'knowledge workers', there has been less widespread discussion of the impact of new technologies on their work. In education there have been some suggestions that the computer will bring about the possibility of schools without teachers, or even the ultimate in home schooling, via individual computer links, making schools as institutions, and the work of teachers, fully redundant. However, when new information technologies are being incorporated into existing schools, this argument becomes somewhat muted. Nonetheless, greater familiarity and more widespread use is likely to create further capacity to suggest the removal of schools. This internal contradiction is likely to continue to require attention, and is perhaps better addressed by the 'future' emphasis than the 'accountability' focus of the official discourses. Indeed, there is a tendency to ignore potential conflict in the official discourses about new technologies in education. For example, though the technologies make it more possible to test students and mark their work in more standardised ways -- and have so been used in the growing testing industry in Australia -- the official promotional discourses rarely mention them. Perhaps this is because among teachers there has been widespread criticism of the tests specifically and the tendency to increase testing regimes. Thus silence on this issue appears more likely to win support of the teaching force. If the technologies are being taken as seriously in other workplaces as they are in education, then the sorting and selecting function of schools may well need to alter, as I shall discuss later. Assessment practices, retention rats, success rates and distribution at different levels, and content of curriculum might all be affected. To date, however, there has been little serious discussion about how schools and all their sorting and selecting functions would be affected by the widespread use of these technologies. Another area of conflict not openly discussed is that connected to devolution. The two tendencies of niche marketing and local management promoted by certain uses of technology and policies of both Victorian and Queensland's Departments of Education, are somewhat compromised by the centralism of the design and specification of standard formats in management software in particular. The long history of centralised bureaucratic and hierarchical control is more visible in the Queensland official documents but is no less present in the Victorian scene. This tension is likely to remain a focus for struggle within school systems, particularly as schools have become an important focus for public debate and government intervention. There is also a notable silence about the health problems which have already arisen in relation to the use of the technologies, including well documented epidemics of Repetition Strain Injury in Victoria in the late 1980s, eye and posture problems and others only quietly being spoken about such as the dangers of machine emissions for human reproductive systems. There are already responses to the significant rise in teacher stress as a result of the level of changes in schools to which the new technologies themselves could be said to contribute. Schools will need to develop considerable expertise in technology-related health issues, including issues of posture, prevention of disease, use of equipment in ergonomic ways, both for teachers as workers and as part of children using technologies. Another silence in the official discourses is that associated with the genderising of new technologies. It appears from early analysis that there is a significant reinscription of masculinity as the norm associated with the new technologies, especially in the photographs appearing in the documents in Victoria (Brennan and Miller: work in progress). The increasingly feminised work force of teachers is subject to a massive reform focus without much account being taken of the history of gendered work segmentation, the gendered use of technologies or the process of altering such inscriptions. This is a significant area for further research, since if the task of the teacher is to include technology as a central element defining work, including relations between teachers and students, then it is important to consider how that work is being redefined and by whom. The issue of continuing funding implications is also likely to remain contentious in public school systems. Zoning, formula funding and centralised staffing have provided infrastructure for relatively equal provision of neighbourhood public schooling across the often large distances on the Australian continent. Recent emphases on markets and parental choice of schooling, combined with funding cuts to the sector have made it much more difficult to ensure there is quality provision in all public schools. Computers and access to other forms of technologically-mediated learning are likely to be the new indicators of educational quality, especially in marking real access of disadvantaged groups. Already there is evidence that parental fund raising is central to the provision of technologies in schools. Many school communities, especially small and/or poor ones, may not be in the position to provide such significant funding for what is becoming seen as the 'normal' but expensive requirement for a basic education. While governments may trumpet their commitment to technology, unless the dollars follow their promises, there is likely to be an even more divided system which ghetto-ises significant numbers of schools and their students with respect to technology. For there is little doubt about the significance of the costs involved. Even where many of the costs are hidden within other items such as professional development or public relations, there is massive spending on hardware, internet connection and support infrastructures alone. Software development and re-development, consultancies for evaluations and design, journalists and designers with expertise in the area, support for professional development, policy development, web-sites and lobbying all require major salary commitments in addition to the hardware itself. When many in the adult general community express fear and lack of understanding about computers, there is even stronger reliance on technical expertise and advice, especially when costs of this level are expected. The level of training and support itself is also in the process of developing the kind of expertise since many of the applications were not originally developed for educational purposes and may require different modifications to those used elsewhere. Significant numbers of small schools in country regions cannot afford long distance phone calls, nor do they all have reliable phone and electricity lines on which most of the new technologies rely (Brennan, 1996b). Even when available, the new technologies are not equally accessible to all. Why `technologically rich' schools? If the efficacy of technologies to live up to their claims is still not proven, and the expense of putting the infrastructure in place is so high, why are schools so strongly targetted for the adoption of new technologies? The answer to this question can only be speculative at this stage, but there are some important directions which can be discussed in the light of my analyses. However, in a paper of this length, a full discussion cannot be undertaken, given the complexity of the issues raised. It is important also to note that official discourses do change -- and can do so quite rapidly, as recent debates on race and Aboriginal Australians unfortunately demonstrate. Nevertheless, some indications are already clear from the official discourses for future educational policies and practices and these warrant careful attention and further research. The high level of coverage of technologies in the official discourses of the two Departments of Education itself reflects a longstanding perception that schools are central to any widespread societal change. This is particularly likely to be the case when the change in question involves new forms of knowledge production and distribution, since education is seen as fundamentally concerned with knowledge. From outside the education sector, pressures of broader economic and political shifts, to which attend a sense of legitmation crisis (Habermas, 1975), are marshalled to work upon schools. Schools are pressed into service as part of a logic of social salvation. From within the education sector, schools and their governance systems rise to the occasion, out of pressures within their field to maintain significant shaping roles in society. The level of investment by Queensland and Victoria in new technologies for the education sector has taken on a momentum of its own and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although the reforms that are conjured in official discourses do not directly determine actual shifts in school practices, it is now obvious that the level of infrastructure supporting technologies is so high that some effects will occur in schools. Once this kind of infrastructure is in place, the question is less whether it will continue but how. The weight of adminstrative and curriculum apparatuses assure their continuity. The reasons for the great stress on the schools taking up information technologies are not only ideological, however. In my view, there are quite specific material changes to the practices of schooling which must arise when new technologies are also being pursued with a high level of vigor in the economic and political spheres. In Australia, the connection between education and the reform of the economy has been made central to government policy and public debates (see Brennan, 1996a). Schools are to provide the 'flexible workers' needed by the restructured, flatter workplaces envisioned in broader economic discourses. This may, as I indicated earlier, require a new sorting mechanism at the school level to differentiate the workforce for technological flexibility, rather than being organised mainly around the 19th century forms of stratification of work and the expectation of a lifetime career in one form of work. James Gee and his colleagues in their studies of the "new work order" argue that the emerging new forms of capitalism and work have specific implications for schools and their alignment with businesses. In the new distributed systems of work organisation, they argue, there will be a need for distribution of knowledge among all workers, so that they can each contribute to the overall achievements of a team, while no individual worker is central to the production process. This thereby allows for flexible workload and casualisation of employment for niche marketing. Thus the rigid hierarchical organisation of knowledge, paralleling the stratification of old capitalist workplaces and school credentialling, is likely not to be appropriate for new kinds of work organisation. Education is becoming central to creating new kinds of work dispositions, especially a willingness to move flexibly between workplaces. The continuation of the meritocratic project of mass schooling will consequently need to alter. I would not expect to see a removal of the individualistic emphasis on achievement; but I might expect to see a wider distribution of necessary skills and dispositions in order to ensure that all potential workers are in the position to move in and out of different jobs speedily and efficiently. This is, of course, only one possible reading of the emerging `work order' and of the new technologies in work. However, the continued development of school uses of information technologies provides employers with more opportunities to make the shift to such a work order. The school remains the only common institution by which the state can intervene in steering its economy. The worker as resource (as new forms of human capital) can best be reached through the mass institution of schooling. Just as in the writing-centric world of the modernist period when minimal levels of literacy were required for the worker, understandings of technology and its implications for work structuring will be required for the information technology-centric work order. However, I do not believe that these changes in the light of the new technologies will entail such a large educational shift as proponents of the `literacy crisis' might suggest. Keith Hoskin points to the centrality of education in establishing the habits and dispositions required in the nineteenth century through the operation of schooling. He argues that by the early nineteenth century, regulation of students through the introduction of practices of writing, grading, and examination was `firmly entrenched. Thereafter students quickly came to take it for granted that writing, grading and examination were practices dating back to time immemorial" (Hoskins, 1993, p.281). This kind of world, organized around the discipline of writing, has been central to the development of the modern world and its schools. Hoskin argues that, rather than education following other spheres, the inculcation of the disciplinary disposition through writing, grading and examination in schools has been transferred from schools to other fields, notably management, the military and science. The kinds of dispositions that information technology requires still entail practices of representation, including writing -- even if computer generated reports become the mode of representation, as Gee and his colleagues show in their case study of a high tech factory (1995). Grading and examination are likely to occur even more often in a workplace oriented to niche market customising and short term production and servicing. It follows that information technologies may be required in schools to develop new forms of disposition and skill, but which build upon quite traditional functions which schools have performed in relation to literacy. Schools have always been closely aligned with the economy of the nation state. The official discourses of the two state education departments which I have examined here in some detail suggest that the alignments are not neat and universally similar. However, if as I have suggested the effect of naturalising the new technologies has been achieved, then this does signal certain directions in which the connections between economic and educational spheres will develop in the future. 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SIMS: School Information Management System, Department of Education, Queensland (undated, received in schools June 1995) Pre-Implementation Planning Guide: School Management System Smyth, J (ed) 1993 A Socially Critical View of the Self-Managing School London: Falmer Press Virilio, P, 1991, The Lost Dimension New York: Semiotext(e) Visscher, A. J., and Spuck, D. W., 1991, "Computer assisted school administration and management: The state of the art in seven nations Journal of Research on Computing in Education 24, 1, pp. 146-168. Watkins, P. 1991, Knowledge and control in the flexible workplace Geelong: Deakin University Press. Abstract: OFFICIAL DISCOURSES OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TWO SCHOOL SYSTEMS Schools in Australia have been positioned as a strong focus for the development and marketing of new information technologies in curriculum and school administration. This study provides a critical examination of the official discourses of two Australian state education departments around new information technologies. A discourse analysis of formal departmental publications over two years in the states of Queensland and Victoria reveals a range of justifications for the potential achievements of the new technologies. Metaphors from the past - such as pioneering and navigation - have been deployed to establish technologies as both the means and the ends for creating what is presented as a necessarily technology-rich future for the education sector. The justifications are couched in ideal terms, and identify assumptions about the strength, longevity, and reliability of the specific technologies and the positive benefits claimed to result for students, teachers, administrators and the credibility of school systems. Bio data: Marie Brennan is ASSOCIATE DEAN (Postgraduate Education) of the Faculty of Education, Central Queensland University. Her research interests include school administration, issues of democratic governance of schools, equity and technology. Paper submitted: OFFICIAL DISCOURSES OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TWO SCHOOL SYSTEMS STRAND: New information technologies and education Keywords: educational reform; information technology; school administration. 1 The author wishes to acknowledge the CQU University Research grant for the project School Information Management Systems in Queensland and the contribution of the two research assistants, Lindy Isdale and Helen Miller,to the development of this paper. The regular contribution of Marion Norbury in keeping me up to date with current Victorian Department of Education publications is also deeply appreciated. Thanks also to Lew Zipin for relevant discussions on earlier drafts. Address for correspondence: Dr M. Brennan, Faculty of Education, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Qld 4702, AUSTRALIA. e-mail: m.brennan@cqu.edu.au Keywords: educational reform; information technology; school administration. 2 For ease of referencing here, I use the latest reincarnation of the Department of Education's name, although during the study it was also called the Directorate of School Education (DSE). 3 There are many factors involved in considering the disparity between the two states, at least two of which are important to mention here. The first is that Victoria is a much smaller state, with many fewer schools than Queensland whose landmass alone requires the operation of many more small, isolated schools. Secondly, there had been a history of Queensland being significantly underfunded under the National Party government until 1989, which required attention to provision of even the most basic services across a very large state. 4 Similar language was used in Victoria to support the introduction of school charters and the school management approaches adopted when the Liberal Government first came to power there, although this was less strongly connected to new information technologies than in Queensland. However, the infrastructure for computerised administration packages in Victoria was already well advanced by that time. See also Visscher and Spuck (1991) for an overall estimate of the high level of investment in computer assisted school administrative software in Australia compared to other countries. 5 Victoria's concern with the administrative approaches used in schools peaked in 1991-1992 whereas Queensland's seems to have occurred more in 1994-1995, based on public policy and Departmental newspaper coverage.