ABSTRACT
The move of education to the centre stage of national policy began more than a decade ago and was signalled by the publication of Australia Reconstructed. The Australian visitors were highly impressed with the ways in which German education and training was integrated through an apparently seamless movement through schools, training providers and universities. The Federal Hawke-Keating Labor Government embarked on an ambitious project to modernise the education and training systems to bring them closer to its imaginary of an educational engine driving the machinery of globally competitive industries. The metaphor of disparate pieces welded into a seamless whole was dominant in a welter of policymaking documents and speeches. The Federal Liberal Government made a number of adjustments to the educational policy regime of the former Labor Government. The Howard Government’s policy platform and transmutated equity agenda were taken up differently by individual States.
