New partnership harnesses data science and lived experience to help students thrive in school
Distinguished Professor George Williams AO, Vice-Chancellor and President, Western Sydney University; Professor Sally Cripps, Co-Director of the Human Technology Institute, UTS; Professor Kristy Muir, Chief Executive Officer, Paul Ramsay Foundation; Murat Dizdar PSM, Secretary, NSW Department of Education; Jacky Hodges, Chief Data Officer, Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, NSW Department of Education; Professor Rebekah Grace, Director, Centre for Transforming early Education and Child Health (TeEACH), Western Sydney University; Professor Vicky Chen, Provost & Senior Vic President, UTS; and Professor Peter Shergold AC, Chair, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) & Chair, Independent Australian Research Council (ARC) Board.
A new research-in-action partnership will identify what students of all backgrounds need to thrive at school and finish high school well.
‘Thrive: Finishing School Well’ is a $12 million 3.5-year innovative research program that will connect world-class statisticians, computer scientists and social scientists with a deep understanding of the experiences of young people and their communities.
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Western Sydney University, which are funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, and the NSW Department of Education, will collaborate to identify what helps or hinders students from finishing school well.
The partnership will work with communities to co-design new approaches to break down barriers related to educational disadvantage so that all students can thrive.
Finishing school is a pathway to improved employment and financial wellbeing, housing security and better physical and mental health. However, in 2022 in NSW just over 28 per cent of students across all school sectors did not complete Year 12 (Source: 2022 NSW Post-School Destinations and Experiences Survey).
Chief Data Officer, Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation at the NSW Department of Education Jacky Hodges said she wanted every student to be supported to reach their potential.
“For too many of our students, barriers outside their control can prevent them from finishing school well," Ms Hodges said.
“The Thrive program looks to identify the best ways we can support students, by bringing together new data science techniques with the real experiences of our students, their families and teachers.”
Sally Cripps, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and Director of Technology at the UTS Human Technology Institute, said the UTS team at Thrive will develop new statistical machine learning and computational methodologies closely informed by researchers at Western Sydney University and the NSW Department of Education. These techniques can unravel the intricate and many causal pathways which lead to finishing school well.
“The Thrive program was prompted by the recognition that most machine learning methods cannot address a fundamental concept; causation, that is, which factors impact outcomes. Thrive at UTS aims to develop methods that can do this,” Professor Cripps said. “Being able to answer this fundamental question is essential for good decision-making in complex environments such as education.”
“The techniques we are developing do not involve trawling through enormous datasets in the hope of finding patterns,” Professor Cripps explained.
“Decision makers need useful information, not volumes of data, and useful information comes from many sources: communities, educational experts as well as observed data. Using these sources, the techniques we develop will guide us to strategies which will most help children finish school well, and to learn how these will vary across communities, with circumstances and over time.”
Program lead for Western Sydney University, Professor Rebekah Grace, Director of the Centre for Transforming early Education and Child Health (TeEACH), said the Thrive team was committed to listening to young people and reflecting on their views in program design and delivery, to unlock the wealth of knowledge that exists within schools, families, and communities.
“Thrive will focus on identifying and leveraging community strengths to inform the co-design and trial of innovative approaches to supporting the school engagement of young people who experience complex challenges,” Professor Grace said.
“We will work to ensure that this project is informed by the perspectives of all stakeholders, including young people and their families, community leaders, educators, and cultural leaders. This collective wisdom is the key to creating meaningful change.”
Thrive is about making a real change to the life and experiences of the young people of NSW, according to Thrive Program Director Dr Gilad Francis.
“We are incredibly thrilled to bring together an amazing team of professionals from different backgrounds and organisations,” he said.
“Together, we will work on ground-breaking multidisciplinary research to support the co-design of new initiatives with and for the people of NSW.”
Professor Rebekah Grace, Director, Centre for Transforming early Education and Child Health (TeEACH), Western Sydney University.
ENDS
13 August 2024
Photo credit: Kwa Nguyen
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