It’s very common for leftist types to moan that our education system is set up to churn out ignorant, obedient robots. In many ways they’re right: what they’re not saying is that it’s them doing it. If any institution has been thoroughly captured by the left, it’s education. And it shows.
Education results have been steadily falling for decades, despite more and more money being thrown at education by the taxpayer. You’ve got to hand it to them: there’s not many professions outside politics where you can be rewarded for consistently failing to do your job.
If there’s one thing that Australian students are failing, to the great detriment of our democracy, it’s civics.
Australian students’ proficiency levels in civics and citizenship have fallen to their lowest level in two decades, according to 2024 exam results released today by ACARA.
“At a national level, the 2024 assessment found a substantial drop in the level of achievement. At both years 6 and 10, the percentage of students achieving the proficient standard has declined significantly compared to the previous cycle,” ACARA chairman Derek Scott said.
“In addition, this is the lowest percentage of students achieving the proficient standard at either year level since the assessment began.”
Just 28 per cent of year 10 students met the proficiency standards compared to 38 per cent when the last test was taken in 2019.
Students in year 6 were also tested. Forty-three per cent rated proficient in 2024 compared to 53 per cent in 2019.
So, after four years of indoctrination by lefty teachers, from a curriculum designed by lefty bureaucrats, kids actually knew less about civics than they started with. The Australian education system has achieved the somewhat impressive feat of making kids dumber.
You’d almost think it was on purpose, but I’m sure that’s just a baseless conspiracy theory.
“[It’s] a population susceptible to manipulation, whether that’s by social media or international hackers who want to kind of get in and cause trouble,” Professor Stewart Riddle, from the University of Southern Queensland said.
Also susceptible to a lying mainstream media and zealous activists.
“There is a direct kind of correspondence to the health of our democracy going into the future and you don’t have to draw too long a bow to think about the implications of that in a global environment where things are becoming more challenging,” he said.
Riddle’s publication record kind of speaks volumes, as it happens. Schooling for democracy in a time of global crisis: Towards a more caring, inclusive and sustainable future. Remixing hip-hop pedagogy with an affinity group. Proposed new curriculum acknowledges First Nations’ view of British ‘invasion’ and a multicultural Australia. Contributing to a book on incorporating Marxist ‘philosopher’ Gilles Deleuze into curriculum development.
So, you can pretty much guess that having noticed the malady, he proceeds to completely misdiagnose the cause.
Professor Riddle said the results reflected long-standing inequities in Australian education. Indigenous, regional and remote students and those from less-advantaged backgrounds performed worse than their peers.
Because it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the far-left loons who’ve dominated education bureaucracy for the past couple of decades.
Like socialism, if they just keep on doing even more of the same, it has to work, eventually.
