It’s all-too indicative of the dire state of the Australian education system that the good news about the latest student results is that they haven’t got any worse, for once. That’s the outcome of the latest round of Australia’s National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) standardised testing.
NAPLAN results have been going steadily downhill since the test was instituted. International rankings, such as PISA, have mirrored the decline.
No wonder teachers’ unions have always hated NAPLAN and repeatedly tried to abolish it. They clearly don’t want us seeing just how much their members are being paid more for, year on year, while doing a worse and worse job.
Meanwhile, Australian students are falling further and further behind.
One third of Australian students aren’t meeting “challenging but reasonable” expectations for literacy and numeracy following the third straight year of concerning NAPLAN results.
Even worse: where, a few decades back, ‘vegie English’ and ‘vegie maths’ were the preserve of just a handful of kids: today one in 10 qualify.
About 10 per cent of students are so far behind they require additional support to catch up to their peers, while another roughly one-fifth are rated as merely “developing” toward expectations.
This is despite pouring more and more money into a clearly failing education system.
“We’ve seen declines in student achievement despite significant investment in funding of the school system,” education analyst Glenn Fahey, from the Centre for Independent Studies, said […]
“Sadly, we don’t have the same level of demand from the public to lift school education as we do in virtually any other area of public policy.”
Says who? Parents have been battling for improvements to education results for decades. Increasing numbers are opting to put what scarce money they can to getting their kids a private education. Growing numbers are opting for home-schooling, realising that the official education system, public and private, is broken.
“This is a code red for your students’ achievement in school. Children who start behind and underachieve in NAPLAN have little to no chance of achieving at year level expectations by the time they finish school,” he said.
Which, at current entrance requirements, would eminently qualify them to be teachers.
When all else fails, shoot the messenger.
However, many education academics are concerned that reporting on NAPLAN is “overblown” and contributing to chronic shortages of teachers.
“Teachers are hearing all of these stories, all of these big challenges, you know ‘NAPLAN is a disaster’ and it’s damaging their motivation and morale,” said Dr Fiona Longmuir from Monash University.
Aw, does it hurt their lil’ fee-fees that their failure is out there for all to see? It certainly makes their next round of demands for pay rises hard to justify.
Dr Sally Larsen from the University of New England said […] NAPLAN does not capture the full range of learning happening in Australian schools.
“NAPLAN assesses only literacy and numeracy skills of children from year three to year nine. While these are important and foundational skills for many other academic domains, literacy and numeracy are not the only important areas of learning in schools,” Dr Larsen said.
“What about creative arts? History? Music? Physical Education? Drama? Even science is not a central focus of annual NAPLAN testing.”
Well, if you can’t read or do basic maths, you’re not going to be able to begin to understand science. History – real history, not the far-left indoctrination students are currently force-fed – also requires basic literacy and, often, an ability to understand statistics.
And Johnny might be able to kick a ball or Sally paint a pretty picture, but if they can’t read, write or do maths, then their life chances are pretty much screwed.
