Following the disappointing news that Australian children were declining in maths, science, and reading competency, a Launceston teacher said more qualified teachers in our schools would be one of many steps in the right direction.
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The Program for International Student Assessment measures the ability of 15-year-olds to use maths, science, and reading to meet real-life challenges.
The 2018 results revealed Australia's results had declined, with student background a significant determining factor in level of achievement.
Former science teacher Doug Grubert said the state was in a situation of ever-declining teacher competency.
"It's hard work. We have a system where we have primary schools and primary school teachers punching above their weight, defying the odds," he said.
"We have senior secondary teachers, again, doing all sorts of wonderful work.
"Then we have this difficult area in the middle, where in the years 7 to 10 it's a battle for many schools to staff their schools with qualified maths and science teachers."
Mr Grubert said unfortunately, many teachers out there didn't have the qualifications to meet or exceed student needs.
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"But that's not to say there aren't exceptional teachers out there," he said.
"I think it would be definitely universally accepted that we have a problem in Tasmania with putting qualified maths and science teachers in front of students, and I've seen that first hand.
"We just want more teachers with the right skills."
He said if you looked at other areas such as the reading results, with all of the resources put into literacy, they should be "kicking goals".
"They've got vastly greater resources and staffing than we do in something like the sciences, so it should come as absolutely no surprise that we would be falling in our performance," he said.
"There's overwhelming support for those science teachers that are moving mountains and doing wonderful things, and it would be great if we had more."
Mr Grubert said Tasmania produced outstanding science students, but it happened in isolated pockets.
"What we'd like to think is that we could have a more systematic approach to how we develop those science inquiry skills with our kids," he said.
For more information about the PISA results, visit oecd.org/pisa.