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.
ACER's director of educational monitoring and research, Dr Sue Thomson, says gender, Indigenous status and socio-economic status still divide student outcomes.
"Australia has slipped backwards to the type of gender disparity that was seen decades ago, and the performance scores of girls coupled with a number of particularly negative motivational attitudes puts Australia further away from providing all students with the same educational opportunities," Dr Thomson said.
Results back Government's plan to focus on teachers, says Pyne
Education Minister Christopher Pyne says Labor's education policies have been in place for most of the decade and they have now been shown as a spectacular failure.
"Today's report card shows that for all the billions spent on laptops and school halls, there is still no evidence of a lift in outcomes for students."
"Despite spending 44 per cent more on education funding over the past decade, results are still in decline.
"This clearly shows that more funding does not equate to better outcomes."
The Federal Government will go ahead with Labor's Gonski plan from next year but will only commit to four years of funding.
Mr Shorten says it needs to get on board for the full six years.
"It's time to implement Gonski in full. It's time to stop the political games and bandaid solutions and get on board giving the next generation of Australians the best start in life."
However:
Kevin Donnelly from the Education Standards Institute says he is not surprised by the results.
"We have in fact been in trouble, if you like, for many, many years.
"We have trouble with disruptive classrooms...[and] we don't allow our teachers to mentor one another and to help one another. In places like Singapore, they actually respect teachers, children respect teachers, they are well-resourced.
"They have a lot more time to learn from one another and to improve classroom practice."
He says the debate is not only about funding.
"Money is important, but it gets back to a rigorous curriculum, effective teaching practice, good teacher training - so there are a few things we can look at there."
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Good Old Labor, think if they throw enough (of the taxpayers) money at a problem, it will go away.
...
SHOW ME THE MONEY 
Money will fix it won't it? everything else Labor has done has failed so why should the decline in education of our children surprise us, after all education is the Labor way isn't it? NOT.
Get rid of the dogma, climate change rhetoric, ethics classes & every other namby pamby left wing lunatic fringe idea they have infested the curriculum with & get back to teaching what is needed to see our kids through life.
They are a disgrace, they have failed our kids & now they are bleating that 1.2 billion put back still isn't enough.
They make me sick, Shorten is a pathetic loser who can't cut through & Plibersek is only good for yelling across the chamber.
@windrake wrote:SHOW ME THE MONEY
Money will fix it won't it? everything else Labor has done has failed so why should the decline in education of our children surprise us, after all education is the Labor way isn't it? NOT.
Get rid of the dogma, climate change rhetoric, ethics classes & every other namby pamby left wing lunatic fringe idea they have infested the curriculum with & get back to teaching what is needed to see our kids through life.
They are a disgrace, they have failed our kids & now they are bleating that 1.2 billion put back still isn't enough.
They make me sick, Shorten is a pathetic loser who can't cut through & Plibersek is only good for yelling across the chamber.
This could very likely fail our children....and us as a Country now and in the long term.It will be on this Government's shoulders.
As it is not what Labor had planned at all .With the changes made any failure ,the lies pre-post election, backflips ,and mutliple changes excuses/blame,pleasing gina and murdoch,using tax payer money for his hobbies/charity work and book promotions ,gaffes, crazed ,racist,sexist ,supporters and puppets,valueless slogans, will all have a place in history ...
something to be proud of you think ?
who's next ....pensioners, the disabled ?
@lakeland27 wrote:in order to achieve thise results students would need to go to a cram session until 11 pm at night after school each day, because thats what they do in shanghai and south korea
I think you have hit the nail on the head there,'
PISA is a test, no different to the Naplan tests.
It compares apples and oranges.
International tests such as PISA are set by multinational teams of experts to reflect what they believe young people should know to prepare them for the future. It is not intended necessarily to reflect the curriculum taught in schools.
It is being assumed here that international tests such as PISA, an OECD admionistered program, are a useful and reasonably precise measure of the quality of education in Australia.
If you look at the list, Austral;ia has actually outperformed most of the countries that are culturally and economically similar to us.
................................................................
What this highlights is that to rise to the ranks of the top five leading countries in the PISA rankings, we have to mirror the countries already there. If our yardstick is a ranking by the PISA framework, then we have to do what those in the top do and "teach to the test" just like we do for Naplan tests. This means, as you have illustrated, a shift in our cultural ideologies and economic landscape.
The skills and abilities needed by Australian kids are very different on a national level to what the skills of our Asian neighbours need.
So, keeping in mind that one of the core purposes of schooling is to produce an ammenable workforce, in the quantities and areas that we require for long term sustainabiliuty, do we adopt a base educational model on what other countries need, or on what Australia needs?
By caving into complying with PISA, it seems to me that we would be ignoring our countries needs, and training our entire population to be employable offshore.
In Asian countries, the focus IS academics as that is their resource base for their saleable commodities that sustain their countries.
Although, perhaps that is what we need to do. To prepare our kids to function effectively in foreign cultures.
Is the covert curriculum preparing our kids for this assimilation? Is this the direction our country is heading? Yhe AEA seems to suggest that we are
From the preamble of the AEA
"If Australia is to be a prosperous nation with a high standard of
living in the 21st century, the performance of Australiaโs schools,
and school students, must continuously improve, particularly as
school performance in countries around the world and in
Australiaโs region is also improving.
It is also essential that Australian schooling provide school
students with opportunities to engage with Australiaโs region.
Through this engagement, Australia can maximise economic,
cultural and social opportunities during the Asian century."
It looks like we are being prepared to accept a new understanding of what "being Australian", is.
Education is currently our 3rd biggest export, the sustainability or improvement of this will be determined by our rankings with PISA.
Right there are the objectives of our covert curriculum. That's what our kids are being trained for, and here we thought it was so that they could be the best that they could be. Instead, it is they are being trained to be exactly what the governent wants them to be, a saleable commodity.
@spotweldersfriend wrote:
Don't beat around the bush windrake.C'mon, out with it.
I would if I could but I have been harmonized, Apparently moron is not allowed even if it is warranted
