Australian students slipping behind in maths, reading: OECD report

A new report comparing Australian high school students with 65 other countries shows the nation is slipping further behind in maths and reading skills.

The 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures the mathematics, reading and science skills of half a million 15-year-olds from around the world.

It found Australian teens placed equal 17th in maths, equal 10th in reading and equal 8th in science.

Asian countries like China, Singapore, Korea and Japan are pulling ahead of Australian students in maths and reading.

The results show Australian students are slipping in maths performance by about a half a year of schooling compared to 10 years ago.

How the states/territories rated:

Maths      Science      Reading
ACT      518      534      525
NSW      509      526      513
VIC      501      518      517
QLD      503      519      508
SA      489      513      500
WA      516      535      519
TAS      478      500      485
NT      452      483      466
AUST      504      521      512
Shanghai      613      580      570

The decline was stronger in girls than boys, with girls dropping to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average.

Standard English in decline among teenagers
Half of teenagers fail to spot the difference between standard English grammar and colloquial language, according to research.
           
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor 5:32PM BST 24 Oct 2008CommentsComment
Many GCSE English students did not realise that phrases such as "get off of" and "she was stood" were grammatically incorrect.

It comes amid fears that the use of social networking websites and mobile phone text messaging is undermining children's literacy skills.

Ministers have also complained many young people spend too much time playing video games and watching TV instead of reading books.

In the latest study, Cambridge Assessment, one of the country's biggest examination boards, surveyed more than 2,000 teenagers in 26 English secondary schools.

They were presented with various phrases - and asked to mark out those employing non-standard English.

Only 41 per cent realised that an adjective had been used in place of an adverb in the phrase "come quick".

Fewer than six-in-10 pupils correctly identified "off of", "she was stood" and "this man showed us" as ungrammatical.

Around a quarter of GCSE students failed to spot errors in the phrases "it wasn't me who done it", "couldn't hardly move", "Tom had gotten cold" and "three mile".

At least a fifth failed to recognise that "more easier" was incorrect. And almost one-in-10 students failed to spot the use of a double negative in the phrase "I didn't break no vase".

Ian McNeilly, from the National Association for the Teaching of English, told the Times Educational Supplement: "For a lot of people - not just young people - their daily use of English is in new media, where non-standard grammatical constructions are more acceptable. That's inevitably going to lead to an increased lack of awareness of more standard constructions."

This summer, almost seven-in-10 pupils gained at least a C grade in GCSE English.

A similar Cambridge Assessment study in 2005 found that GCSE pupils had better grasp of grammar and punctuation than young people a decade ago but were more likely to lapse into colloquialisms.

Dr Beth Black, author of the latest report, said: "It is possible that these less well-recognised non-standard English forms will find their way into standard English, especially given the view that teenagers are linguistic innovators who bring about change in standard dialect."

Well racist trollster

India was a colonial country as well

and if you've had any phone calls from

an Indian call centre made by Kolkata Kevin

then you would know it's just BS.

4. International and migrant students are actually raising standards, not lowering them

There are many who believe that Australian education is being held back by our multicultural composition and high proportion of migrant students. This could not be further from the truth. In the most recent PISA assessment of 15 year olds, Australian-born students' average English literacy score was significantly lower than the average first-generation migrant students' score, and not significantly different from foreign-born students.

The proportion of top performers was higher for foreign-born (14%) and first-generation students (15%) than for Australian-born students (10%).

Students from Chinese, Korean and Sri Lankan backgrounds are the highest performers in the NSW HSC. The top performing selective secondary schools in NSW now have more than 80% of students coming from non-English speaking backgrounds.

5. You can’t have quality education without quality teachers

While there are many factors that may contribute to teacher quality, the overall academic attainment of those entering teaching degrees is an obvious and measurable component, which has been the focus of rigorous standards in many countries.

An international benchmarking study indicates that Australia’s teacher education policies are currently falling well short of high-achieving countries where future teachers are recruited from the top 30% of the age cohort.

In Australia between 1983 and 2003, the standard intake was from the top 26% to 39%. By 2012/2013, less than half of Year 12 students receiving offers for places in undergraduate teacher education courses had ATAR scores in the top 50% of their age cohort.

Teacher education degrees also had the highest percentage of students entering with low ATAR scores, and the proportion of teacher education entrants with an ATAR of less than 50 nearly doubled over the past three years. We cannot expect above-average education with below-average teachers.

6. Early learning participation is amongst the lowest in the developed world

While Australia has recently lifted levels of investment in early childhood education, this investment has not been reflected in high levels of early childhood participation. In Australia, just 18% of 3 year olds participated in early childhood education, compared with 70% on average across the OECD. In this respect, we rank at 34 out of 36 OECD and partner countries.

Australia also ranks at 22 out of 37 on the OECD league table that measures the total investment across education as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product.

While low levels of expenditure and participation curtail any system, there is more negative impact from a lack of investment in early childhood than there would be from a lack of funding further up the educational chain. Nobel prize winner James Heckmann has shown how investment in early childhood produces the greatest returns to society.

What to do?

Funding is a critical issue, and not just in terms of what you spend, but also how you spend it. Research suggests spending on early childhood, quality teaching and core curriculum have the greatest returns on investment.

There is also growing evidence to suggest that a segregated schooling system – for example, socio-economically or  academically selective schools – is counterproductive and restricts social mobility. High-performing countries have school systems on a far more level playing field than Australia.

We need a long-term plan across education sectors: from early childhood, to schools, universities and TAFE, which includes plans for supporting and strengthening teacher education in all those sectors.

We also need a louder public conversation about Australian education, and lobbying to shift how we value and invest in education.

When Germany was shocked by its first performance on the 2000 PISA assessment, it started a national conversation that saw education on the front page of newspapers for the next two years. Germany’s education has been improving ever since.

If Australia wants to build a strong and competitive economy, we need fewer front page articles about budget cuts, and more on reform and investment in education.

If you hate so much everything about Australia, why don't you just leave?

Dustwun wrote on Apr 8^th, 2016 at 11:35am:


Not Australia, Dustwun, closet Poms. They're an inferior species.

This isn't racist. Closet Poms aren't a race.

Gnads wrote on Apr 8^th, 2016 at 10:58am:


Indians are manning the call centres because no closet poms can be found that can speak the Queen's English.

Closet poms can't even spell Kevin, let alone Kolkata.

Karnal wrote on Apr 8^th, 2016 at 11:57am:
Your post definitely shows bigotry and prejudice. Welcome to the club Karnal Knowledge.

Svengali wrote on Apr 8^th, 2016 at 11:05am:


Incorrect ... Indians are manning call centres because rationalising companies go offshore in the name of cost cutting & to contract out this work because they pay Indians a pittance and people don't belong to Unions.

Try a modicum of truth in your responses.