Who Is to Blame for Australia’s Sliding Education Standards?

Year 12 students pose for a media opportunity following their first HSC exam at Sydney Secondary College in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 9, 2021. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Commentary

An old adage tells us: “there are none so blind as those who do not want to see.”

So it is with Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the body responsible for Australia’s national curriculum. This body acts with complete surprise at Australia’s declining education standards, which has been happening steadily over a number of years under its watch.

The OECD’s PISA program (Program for International Students Assessment) measures the ability of 15-year-olds across 78 countries to use their reading, mathematics, and science knowledge to meet real life challenges. This international assessment is undertaken every three years, and the most recent results available are from 2018.

The PISA results clearly show an alarming decline in the performance of Australian students.

Since 2003, Australian students have dropped from:

• 11th place in maths to 29th;
• 8th place in science to 15th;
• 4th place in literacy to 16th.

It is clear, then, that our education system is failing to deliver even the basic learning outcomes our children deserve.

This is despite, as Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) research shows that in Victoria for example, since 2014, spending on education has increased by 30 percent, yet critical reading and numeracy results have not increased in a commensurate manner.

The alarming decline in Australian educational standards was confirmed last month, when ACARA released the 2022 NAPLAN comparative national results.

NAPLAN as a measure may not be exhaustive, but it does measure the core skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and numeracy. It provides parents of years 3, 5, 7, and 9 students with an independent and objective measure of whether or not their child is grasping the basics.

Prep students enjoy returning to the classroom at Lysterfield Primary School, in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 12, 2020. (Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

Colleen Harkin of the IPA analysed the NAPLAN results and found it was clear that Australian students are not grasping the basics needed for higher learning.

I can attest to this depressing phenomenon as one who has worked in tertiary education for over 13 years.

Are Lockdowns to Blame?

In Harkin’s analysis, it seems year 3 students did extremely well, despite the lockdowns. In fact, one may well say that the enforced home schooling meant that teachers and parents had to focus on the things that really matter.

As Harkin stated, due to lockdowns, teachers and parents decided to focus on fewer areas, and greater attention was placed on ensuring the core foundational skills were covered. In other words, teachers and parents made sure the three R’s were the focus—‘Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmatic.’

While year 3 results have been positive, the same cannot be said of other cohorts, as Harkin asserts.

The reading results for year 9 girls show 18.7 percent are at or below the minimum standard.

Even more troubling, the results for reading skills of year 9 boys are worse, with 28 percent at the minimum or below the national minimum standard (NMS).

This means that over a quarter of year 9 boys are either below the NMS or just meeting it. Shockingly, almost one-in-eight year 9 boys do not meet the NMS for reading.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare sought to dismiss these worrying results by saying: “it’s not clear whether that’s COVID, but I would suspect it’s a big part of it.”

Australian Education Minister Jason Clare, together with state and territory counterparts, speak to the media after a meeting at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Aug. 12, 2022. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

However, as Harkin points out, if COVID was indeed the culprit for the concerning reading results, one would expect to see similar results across the other areas tested.

However, as she demonstrates, the numeracy results of the 2022 year 9 students have remained consistent through their school life—95.5 percent being at or above NMS in year 3, 95.8 percent in year 5 and 95 percent in year 9. Previous year 9 cohorts show similar consistent results.

However, if we follow the reading results of the same group of students, we see a path of steady, disturbing decline.

The data proves that for every cohort, the standard of achievement remains stable in maths but declines significantly in reading by the time students reach year 9.

What is clear is that COVID is definitely not responsible for the drop in reading skills, as Clare would have us believe.

The declining trend in reading results predates COVID—as the PISA program statistics I referred to above bear out.

Is It the Curriculum?

The national curriculum’s priorities have been askew for far too long, and the latest iteration is even worse.

As the IPA’s Bella D’Abrera wrote in The Australian recently (pdf):

“What the national curriculum authority has produced is a political document infused with a pagan-green ideology,” D’Abrera said.

“Throughout the new prep to year 6 curriculum, the under-12s are continuously encouraged to think about themselves in terms of how they relate to the environment, as well as through the lens of First Nations Australians. In geography, children repeatedly are told they must care for places that are inextricably tied to their identity. What is more, First Nations Australians are consistently held up as role models when it comes to the environment.

“Children are being taught it is better to be an Indigenous Australian than any other type of Australian. This is consistent with the teaching of Australia’s history.”

When this is added together with the “whole word” approach to reading that has been widely implemented throughout Australian primary schools, it is clear who is to blame for Australia’s falling education standards.

The OECD Education and Skills Director Andreas Scheicher says: “A crowded curriculum equates to burnt-out teachers and a weak education system.”

The need, as he points out, is to teach fewer things at greater depth and with greater curriculum integrity.

Given the clear link that has been established between poor school results and unemployment, it is advice ACARA would be well-advised to heed for the sake of our children and their future.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.