Australian schools get poor grades from international studies


Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 12/12/2012

Reporter: Heather Ewart

Australian ranks 27 of 48 countries in reading and our maths and science performance hasn't lifted since 1995, according to two international studies, providing a 'wake-up call' according to Education Minister Peter Garrett.


CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Australia's been told that it must do better in class. An international test has found our schools lag well behind the world leaders in reading, maths and science. We're ranked 27th, on par with Eastern European nations.

The Federal Government's using the bad report card to push its education reform plan, but some experts say the results are open to interpretation.

National affairs correspondent Heather Ewart reports.

PETER GARRETT, MINISTER FOR SCHOOL EDUCATION: Australian students are either flatlining, they're going backwards in some instances or not going forwards as quickly as we need them to do.

GEOFF MASTERS, AUST. COUNCIL FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: I'm surprised particularly with the Year Four reading results. I think it's quite worrying that we rank 27th and that 21 countries in the world significantly outperformed Australia.

PAUL SHEAHAN, FORMER PRINCIPAL, MELBOURNE GRAMMER SCHOOL: I don't think we should give a knee-jerk reaction to the results. They require a fair bit of interpretation.

HEATHER EWART, REPORTER: The Australian education sector was in overdrive today, trying to make some sense of an international reading test showing our primary school students scored the lowest of any English-speaking nation. About 25 per cent of Australia's Year Four students failed to meet the minimum standard in reading for their age. And with the 48 countries tested, we ranked 27th, well behind the leaders, Hong Kong, Russia and Finland, as well as the US and England. It's the first time Australia participated.

PETER GARRETT: Today's results tell us that business as usual is simply not acceptable when it comes to education reform.

HEATHER EWART: What's gone wrong?

GEOFF MASTERS: It's hard to know. This is the first time we've had evidence that allows us to compare reading levels in primary schools with levels in other countries. So we're not able to say whether this is a new development, whether this has always been the way, whether our standards have improved or declined. So it's a little hard to know.

HEATHER EWART: But are the results quite as straightforward as they seem. Leading educators point to stark differences in cultures and teaching methods in the countries that took past.

DEBORAH CORRIGAN, EDUCATION, MONASH UNI.: Japan and Finland, Singapore - very monocultural societies and so they don't have multiple ethnic groups sitting in their classrooms. They have some, but not the diversity that Australia has. So, the context of the education in Australia is very different from those other countries. So, it's a bit like trying to compare apples and oranges rather than apples and apples.

PAUL SHEAHAN: And South-East Asian societies have no difficulty at all in training their children, particularly training them to be successful in testing. Whether that is good for their overall education and creates a - you know, a creative mind in the young people is open to debate. But there's no doubt that they see these results as being very important for their national pride and they have no compunction in spending a lot of time teaching to them. We don't.

HEATHER EWART: In other words, our students are not familiar with international testing or learning by rote, as is the case in some other systems.

The former head of the prestigious Melbourne Grammar and now chairman of the Melbourne Cricket Club, Paul Sheehan, argues that's not necessarily a bad thing.

PAUL SHEAHAN: My real concern is that - there's a bit of an analogy here, I think it's appropriate, between Test match cricket and Big Bash League. You know, I think we've got to make young people think more. Not be, you know, immediately grabbed by the superficial, but actually make them look behind the surface and get their brains working and I'm sure that's what will encourage growth in their mental capacities and that sort of thing will be reflected in the results in the long term.

HEATHER EWART: The international tests in reading, as well as maths and science where Australia was blitzed by Asian countries were conducted in 2010.

While educators all have a different take on the results and whether they can be fairly applied to the classrooms of today, they don't dispute there are lessons in it for Australia and this appears to centre on re-examining the education and practical training of teachers at all levels.

GEOFF MASTERS: I think we need to look carefully at how well we're preparing teachers, the kinds of people who are going into teaching, what we can do to lift the status of teaching as a profession. But we know, even from the results that are released today, that we have quite a number of teachers in our schools who are saying they themselves don't feel confident and well prepared to teach some of the things that we're asking them to teach, particularly in areas like science and mathematics.

CHERYL MCBRIDE, PRINCIPALS FORUM, NSW PUBLIC SCHOOLS: I think often teaching is a second or a third choice. I think particularly from our most intellectual graduates, often they will look at, I guess, the more socially acceptable or respected professions like law or medicine or engineering or whatever and just say to themselves, "Well, look, if I don't get into that then I will go into teaching."

HEATHER EWART: Better pay for teachers is an argument that comes up again and again in a bid to attract the best quality to the profession.

GEOFF MASTERS: It may be the case that we need to be paying more. What international experience suggests is that what's important is that teachers are paid at about the same level as other professionals, other graduates.

CHERYL MCBRIDE: It is about returning the status. We do need to pay them more. We do need to make it a bit tougher to get into university. At the moment in NSW we have way too many primary teachers, way too many. We cannot possibly give them the jobs that they would like to see in a permanent capacity. And so let's make it a bit harder. Let's make that entry level quite intellectually high so that we do get graduates that are quite clever.

HEATHER EWART: But the deputy dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash University, a big educator of teachers, disagrees, saying she thinks the bar is already high enough.

DEBORAH CORRIGAN: Our teacher education students are in the top 30 per cent in the country. Their ATARs are 70 and above. I think we have high quality teachers. What I do think we need to do is to start valuing our teachers. It's very easy to point the stick at teachers. There are many people who actually cannot teach because it is a highly demanding, highly stressful, highly emotive profession to engage in.

HEATHER EWART: And a parting word of advice from them all: parents need to take responsibility as well.

GEOFF MASTERS: Parents can do a lot to support their children's learning. They can read to them from a young age, they can get involved, talk with teachers, ask teachers how they can support what's happening in schools, monitor what's happening. So, yes, there's an important role that parents can play in supporting this improvement agenda.

HEATHER EWART: And no amount of international testing can beat that.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Heather Ewart reporting.