BYLC AGM 2020

Education in Australia

Every study I have read links education with higher income both for the individual and for the country. Increasing our education performance to that of Finland’s would lead to a 200% GDP increase over the next 90 years. A 10% increase in teacher effectiveness would make all Australians 12% wealthier by 2050.

Every study says the same thing, increasing education leads to a better quality of life. Now, the difficulty we have is this, Australia throws a lot of money at education, comparable to the leading countries, but our performance gets worse, you seemingly can’t just buy your way out of trouble.

What is more important for us in this room, is that the gap between the higher and lower socio-economic group is widening, as well as between metro and rural. The outcomes across the board have gotten worse, but at a much faster rate in the lower-socio economic group.

What is the answer, well every politician has one, at least at election time, different countries have achieved success in different ways, but I want to talk to you about the true solution.

Malcolm Smith, executive director of Teen Challenge in Western Australia, says it’s not hard to get someone off drugs. “They detox and the drugs come out of their system. The big challenge is teaching a young person how to live a meaningful, enjoyable, purposeful life without using drugs. Otherwise, it’s a revolving door. You get them off drugs and they go out into the world and it’s the same old thing: they think no one loves them, I’m still doing the same old thing, with the same old people. And they end back in drugs.” “It’s easy to get someone off drugs. But it’s hard to put someone’s life back together. And the Christian gospel is the greatest way to do it.”

The reality is that so many of these young people who come through BYLC, despite the best efforts of our dedicated teachers, despite our continually improving and great facilities, are going to end up stuck in the same cycle that many of them have grown up in, you can teach them for a season, but unless something radically changes, old patterns re-emerge.

We can provide food, a more suitable education model, but what about a change to years of neglect or abuse, only God can do that.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

16From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

If our students respond to the gospel they will be filled with the Holy Spirit, they will be dead to sin and alive to Christ. That is what it means to be a new creation, no longer a child of brokenness but a child of God. This is the only way to truly break these horrible cycles, the only way to truly see student set free.

We should strive to give them a good education, we should do our best to help them into employment, but our primary goal if you want to see students changed is first of all that they are saved from hell and secondly that they are changed now. The rest of our passage puts it like this:

18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Every member of this board, every teacher at the school is an ambassador for Christ and he is making his appeal through us, be reconciled to God, having their sins cancelled and the righteousness of God given.

I challenge you as the board to give your best for the next 12 months to running the school well, driving good education and workplace health, but to also accept your role to be ambassadors for Christ which means, making Christ’s appeal to life in his name through you.