Recent Stories

Batting for the team

Celebrating two years as Secretary of the Department this month, Prof. Peter Dawkins opens up to Education Times about his passion for economics and education, his love of cricket and the people who have inspired him the most.

What do you admire about teachers?

Their commitment to getting the best out of kids. Teachers can really get huge satisfaction out of seeing their students develop – and teachers are able to develop an empathy and an understanding of how to foster that learning. I think that is something quite admirable.

Did you have any memorable teachers yourself growing up?

In my last year of primary school I had Mr Spratley… As well as being an outstanding teacher of the core literacy and numeracy skills he had broader aspirations for us – like drama!

We put on A Midsummer Nights’ Dream at one of the major theatres in Southampton. I played the role of Peter Quince. He used to take us on various school outings, to see the world around us, and he was good at that broader part of child development. He was also very charismatic.

What drew you to education?

I’ve always had a passion for learning. My father was a teacher – he was a school principal in England, so education has been a big theme in my family.

Like any student, you go through phases in your learning career, and my main interest when I was an adolescent was actually sport. I was a very keen cricketer. Sport was my great passion.

My parents would say: ‘Come on, you’ve got to get down to study more than you are!’ I was too focused on playing cricket.

But what really got my academic career going was economics.

When did you discover economics?

When I was about 15 years old – and probably at a point where I was just coasting a bit. I found this subject [economics] and that’s when my academic career started taking an upward trajectory.

I had this passion for learning about a subject that I felt deeply interested in, and then after my undergraduate studies, I became interested in teaching it to university students, which was a way of keeping that passion.

What attracted you to economics?

It was a number of things. I had quite a strong quantitative aptitude, but I didn’t, at that time, get very excited about the ‘hard sciences’. That was partly because my economics teachers were more inspirational than my science teachers, but also I was more interested in human behaviour and therefore in economics as a social science.

Do you have any special techniques for managing your workload?

I get into the office at about 8am and usually leave around 6.30pm. I have a couple of hours with the family, and then typically do a bit more after about 9pm.

All the papers that are coming across my desk … you’ve got to keep it moving, not let it stock-pile or it will get out of hand. It’s also important to be proactive and strategic – and really help to shape the agenda.

Building a good understanding with your Ministers and their priorities is critical. A key role of a Secretary is to be the go-between between the Ministers and the Department and to build up a strong  relationship with your leadership team who take on major delegated responsibilities. And having a very efficient staff in the Secretary’s office is another key!

You’ve rubbed shoulders with some influential people. Aside from premiers and ministers, who has impressed you the most?

As well as a number of influential academic economists, like John Freebairn and Ross Garnaut, one person who was a privilege to work with was Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large of The Australian. We co-edited a book called Hard Heads, Soft Hearts. He combines being a day-to-day journalist with being a big thinker.  We had a profound sense of agreement about key public policy issues – we found a meeting of the minds around a strong economic reform agenda with a concern about social outcomes, hence the title of the book.

I have also learnt a lot from prominent education academics, such as Barry McGaw. In the public service, it was Victorian Treasury Secretary Ian Little who attracted me into government. He was as an excellent economist, committed to reform and also a really nice man.

He was a great mentor, who said: ‘What you’ve got to remember is the number of people doing the work of the department. Your job is to empower and encourage and extract the greatest amount from them.’ It was a tragedy when he died so young. Working with Ian Little, Terry Moran and Helen Silver, in the COAG reform process has been great. At the federal level, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has also been an inspiration.

Top 3 books

1. Development as Freedom
Amartya Sen

This book by the Nobel Prize-winning economist encapsulates so much that I think is important. He provides a rich understanding of poverty as ‘capability deprivation’, and the importance of capability development, through education and employment, to unleash people from poverty.

2. The Disciplined Mind
by Howard Gardner

I have read several books about education in the last two years and one that had a big impact on me was this one, which emphasises the importance of ‘deep understanding’.

This can only be developed by mastering key disciplines such as Mathematics, English, the Sciences, History, Economics and Geography.

In confronting many major contemporary problems, inter-disciplinary approaches are needed, but these can only be successful if a grasp of key disciplines is achieved first.

This idea was a key theme in the Future of Schooling in Australia Report produced last year by the States and Territories Committee that I chaired. Barry McGaw from the University of Melbourne, now the Chair of the National Curriculum Board, was an important member of that Committee, who ensured that the report had strong theoretical and empirical foundations.

3. Nineteen Eighty Four
by George Orwell

I read more fiction in my youth than I do these days, including some of the great classics. But it was this twentieth century novel, about the dangers of totalitarianism, that perhaps made the biggest impression on me in my youth.  As it turned out incidentally, 1984 was the year that I came to Australia.

st twenty years or so, especially those that capture some of the distinctiveness of Australian humour, like The Dish, and The Castle. They would probably be in my top ten.

Top 3 films

1. All The Presidents Men (1976)

I was deeply interested in Watergate, having visited Washington as an exchange student around the time of Watergate, including a visit to the White House, where we were hosted by Nixon’s staff. I thought Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford did a great job in the film.

2. Educating Rita (1983)

This film said a lot about the power of education, a topic close to my heart, and had two top-class lead characters.  

3. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

As well as being very dramatic, this film was based upon the life of a Nobel prize-winning economist who lived on the edge between brilliance and mental illness. Knowing something about John Nash added to the interest for me.

I should add that as an immigrant Australian, I have greatly enjoyed watching a number of Australian films over the last twenty years or so, especially those that capture some of the distinctiveness of Australian humour, like The Dish, and The Castle. They would probably be in my top ten.

Top 3 cricketers

1. Gary Sobers

A great all-rounder.

2. Ian Botham

Another great all-rounder!

3. Shane Warne

Probably the greatest spinner of all time (although Sri Lankan Muttiah Murilitharan has strong claims too.) I was a spin-bowling all-rounder myself, who could only dream of playing like these greats! But I kept going until I was forty. In Australia I played for Flinders University in South Australia and Murdoch University in Western Australia.