The latest educational snapshot into Australia’s school system doesn’t paint Tasmania’s performance in an overly impressive light.
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The report, released on Tuesday by the Australian Council for Educational Research on the science, reading and mathematics skills of Australian 15-year-olds, shows that Australia as a whole had fallen further behind relative to other countries.
On a state and territory basis, Tasmania ranked last of the eight in maths and science and second last to the Northern Territory in reading.
More than half a million students from more than 70 countries and economies took part in the report, PISA 2015: a first look at Australia’s results.
Australia performed equal 10th in science, equal 12th in reading and equal 20th in mathematics.
When you break down the figures from previous reports, the average Australian student is seven months behind where they were in science in 2006, 12 months behind in maths in 2003, and a year behind in reading compared with 2000.
To compare us on an international stage, Singapore’s students were ranked ahead of Australia’s in terms of scientific literacy by the equivalent of around 18 months of schooling, a year ahead in reading and two-thirds of a year in maths.
How we’ve fallen so far behind is of great concern.
As a country, Australia has always taken great pride in what we considered to be our “world-class” education system. We even have a multi-billion-dollar industry that attracts overseas students to our schools.
It now appears we may have been somewhat deluding ourselves.
From a Tasmanian perspective, the results are even more concerning.
We’ve long suspected thanks to our NAPLAN testing results that we sit towards the lower end of all the tables across the various categories.
This latest report adds to that gloom.
Despite a steady increase in school funding, Australia’s and Tasmania’s results have gone backwards.
Ironically, federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham will sit down with his state and territory counterparts next week in an attempt to strike a new school funding deal.
This latest report will give those ministers plenty of ammunition to demand even more money from the feds.
