Wednesday 4 December 2013
Another debate spark about education funding after Australia's poor school results
Another debate spark about education funding after Australia's poor school results
Australian high school students have gone backwards in the latest international test results in mathematics, reading and science, sparking fresh debate over the worth of education spending increases and how resources are distributed.
Significant achievement gaps remain in Australia based on gender, Indigenous status, location and wealth. The difference between students from the highest and lowest socio-economic categories is equivalent to two-and-a-half years of schooling, according to an analysis conducted by the Australian council for educational research (ACER).
Australia’s biggest decline in the OECD’s programme for international student assessment was in the mathematics section, in a finding immediately seized on by the Abbott government as evidence more money for schools did not improve results. The government also portrayed the figures as a repudiation of the long-running education union policy to reduce class sizes.
But Labor and the Greens argued the results were a “wake up call” showing the importance of fully implementing the needs-based funding system outlined by David Gonski’s review, ensuring the aim was not undermined by freedom for states to cut their contributions.
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, said Australia’s international ranking in mathematical literacy had dropped from 15th in 2009 to 19th in 2012, while its ranking in scientific literacy fell from 10th to 16th, and its placing in reading literacy decreased from 9th to 14th. These ranking are based on the raw mean scores.
But taking into account statistically insignificant differences between countries and economies, Australia performed equal 17th in mathematics, equal 8th in science and equal 10th in reading, according to analysis conducted by ACER.
Asian nations and economies again dominated the results, with Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Macao and Japan leading the pack in mathematical literacy. Australia was also outperformed by Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Canada, Poland, Belgium and Germany.
The director of educational monitoring and research at ACER, Sue Thomson, said Australia’s slip backwards in mathematics and reading skills over the past decade was cause for concern. She said the mean mathematical literacy performance declined between 2003 and 2012 by the equivalent of more than half a year of schooling.
Thomson said Australia’s mathematical literacy performance declined more for girls than it did for boys. “While the overall PISA mathematics score for Australia is still higher than the OECD average, the score for girls has dropped so it is equal to the OECD average. Further, student questionnaire responses collected as part of PISA reveal that Australian girls hold much more negative beliefs than Australian boys about mathematics and learning mathematics.”
Pyne said results were declining despite big increases in education spending over the past decade, including on laptops and school halls. He argued teacher quality was critical to lifting student outcomes. He was concerned Australia’s high performing students were not doing as well as students from other countries and its low performing students were struggling.
The education minister later took a swipe at the political Left for being “mesmerised” by teacher-student ratios, saying Australia’s class sizes were below the OECD average yet had not stopped the decline in outcomes. But he told reporters he would leave it up to the states, territories and non-government school sector to decide their own policies on class sizes.
The Greens argued the results should place act as a “wake-up call” for the Abbott government over the need to fully implement the needs-based school funding reforms in every state and territory. The party’s spokeswoman on schools, Penny Wright, said Australia had a large gap between the highest and lowest performing students.
“By ditching the Gonski model in favour of no-strings-attached funding for Queensland, the Northern Territory and Queensland, Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne are ensuring disadvantage will continue, holding back Australia’s global performance,” Wright said.
“It is deplorable that in the 21st century, indigenous students are two and a half years behind non-indigenous students, and that kids in remote areas are as much as 18 months behind children in the city.”
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said the government should not conclude from the results that the answer was not to increase school funding. He said Labor had done its “homework” by commissioning the Gonski review and demanded it be implemented in full.
“Now if you're going to change something as big as the educational ship of state and make it steer in a different direction you can't do that overnight,” Shorten said.
Almost 510,000 students from 65 countries and economies took part in PISA 2012, including a sample of 14,481 students in Australia.
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