How do Australian School Result Compare Internationally?

Have you ever heard the claim that the performance of Australian schools is falling compared to other countries? The people who make the claim often aren’t experts, they’ve probably just read a report from PISA.

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is the only large international study carried out comparing the skills and knowledge of Australian school students with students from overseas. It does this by testing over 460 000 15-year-old students in 65 (mostly industrialised) countries. The two hour test covers three areas: literacy, mathematics and science. It is carried out every three years so academic performances can also be compared over time. The last time it was carried out was 2009.

If you’re interested in what PISA says about Australia based on their 2009 assessment I recommend the following report:

In Brief Highlights from the full Australian Report:Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009.

You can download this report and others from the following website:  http://www.acer.edu.au/ozpisa/reports

My own impression from the PISA report is Australia achieves very good results in the areas of Literacy, Mathematics and Science, but there is room for improvement. The results from 2009 show in all three areas tested (Literacy, Mathematics and Science) Australia performed significantly higher than the OECD average. Some countries did score significantly higher than Australia. Six countries out of 65 scored significantly higher in Reading Literacy than Australia. Twelve countries performed significantly higher than Australia in Mathematics. Six countries performed significantly higher than Australia in Science.

If you compare Australia’s performances over time you will find that some of the results have decreased in some States since 2000. For example, Reading Literacy has declined in Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory compared to the levels those particular states achieved in 2000. Similarly, most states showed some decline in their Mathematical performance since 2003, with the exceptions being Victoria, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania which had no significant change. In Science there has been no significant change in Australia’s performance over recent years.

For more information on PISA you can watch the following video of theirs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugz_1Clpsdk