Further reading of the excellent article referred to in my last post by Kerr Neilson – The Rise of Asia – has got the Slack Investor onto one of his hobby horses. In a previous life, before my main working stint as a meteorologist, I was a maths and science high school teacher in Australia, UK, Jamaica, US and PNG. With the zealotry of an ex-teacher, I have been keeping a loose eye on the education system in Australia and … I don’t like what I see …
There is an international (OECD countries) test that measures student skills (in mathematics, science, and reading comprehension) called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Shown below, 7 of the top 10 positions were filled by Asian countries. In 9 years, Australia has fallen from no. 9 in 2006 to no. 21 in 2015. The UK ranked 23 and has not changed much in the rankings. The US ranked 31 and also has had a declining performance this past 6 years. There are arguments that these absolute rankings can be misleading, but they are presented below.
| 2015 Rank | Country | 2015 Average Score | 2006 Average Score | Change In Rank (2006-2015) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | 552 | 543 | +1 |
| 2 | Hong Kong (China) | 533 | 542 | +1 |
| 3 | Japan | 529 | 517 | +7 |
| 4 | Macao (China) | 527 | 509 | +10 |
| 5 | Estonia | 524 | 516 | +6 |
| 6 | Chinese Taipei | 524 | 526 | 0 |
| 7 | Canada | 523 | 529 | -2 |
| 8 | Finland | 523 | 553 | -7 |
| 9 | Korea | 519 | 542 | -5 |
| 10 | B-S-J-G (China) | 514 | – | – |
| 11 | Slovenia | 509 | 506 | +5 |
| 12 | Ireland | 509 | 509 | +3 |
| 13 | Germany | 508 | 505 | +4 |
| 14 | Netherlands | 508 | 521 | -6 |
| 15 | Switzerland | 506 | 513 | -3 |
| 16 | New Zealand | 506 | 524 | -9 |
| 17 | Norway | 504 | 487 | +11 |
| 18 | Denmark | 504 | 501 | +4 |
| 19 | Poland | 504 | 500 | +4 |
| 20 | Belgium | 503 | 511 | -7 |
| 21 | Australia | 502 | 520 | -12 |
Source: OECD (PISA)
What is wrong and how can we fix it …
Smarter people than myself have been contemplating this problem. Most of the information below comes from a Conversation article “Six ways Australia’s Education system is failing our kids”. .. and the answer is not just spending more money. Education spending in Asia is around 2-4% of GDP and lags that of Western countries (about 5%). Perhaps a clue can be found in the importance that other countries place in education – In addition to normal schooling, around 80-90% of Asian families are willing to give their kids private tuition, compared to just 20-30% of households in western countries.
The solution to this alarming relative fall in standards is complex but a good start would be to bring Education more to the forefront of Australian minds. Germany had a similar fall in its PISA scores in the year 2000. However, in contrast to Australia, it started a national conversation that saw education on the front page of newspapers for the next two years! Germany has since greatly improved its ranking.
There seems to be a morale problem with teachers. Gabrielle Stroud reports that new teachers complain of a lack of support and have difficulty getting secure full-time jobs. Experienced teachers complain of the many non-teaching duties that they have to do and they don’t have time for mentoring younger staff. Also it seems that teachers are not hanging around …
Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest 53 per cent of people who hold a teaching degree do not currently work in education. – from abc.net.au
A few of the distressing facts from the Conversation article …
Australia ranks 22 out of 37 on the OECD league table that measures the total investment across education as a percentage of GDP.
In maths and science, an average Australian 15-year-old student has the problem-solving abilities equivalent to an average 12-year-old Korean pupil.
Australia is just about the only developed nation that does not make it compulsory to study maths in order to graduate from high school.
Teacher education degrees had the highest percentage of students entering with low University entrance scores.
You cannot expect top performances if we recruit our teachers from below average students. Perhaps we should take a lead from Singapore, where the government has focused on a centralized system of education and a key factor in their ranking rise has been the standard of teaching, recruiting their teachers from the top 5% of graduates.
“Singapore invested heavily in a quality teaching force – to raise up the prestige and status of teaching and to attract the best graduates,” – Prof Sing Kong Lee, Nanyang Technological University
Whatever we do, we must do it soon and hold our politicians to account for this depressing trend. The march to be successful in the future depends on ideas and technology – and the growth trends are definitely in China’s favour.
I haven’t even started on the sparsity of financial education in Australian schools … I think I had better go for a lie down!
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Both Mr. ETT and I are part of the 53%. I gave it a red-hot go for 12 months, then nearly had a nervous breakdown. As a new teacher I had to attend 6 meetings a week, volunteer to organise extracurricular activities and complete my accreditation. I was barely holding my head above water writing lesson plans and learning how to manage a tricky classroom. After I left, I volunteered back at the school. It was wonderful. I had the time and space to make a difference without all of the attached bureaucracy. When I manage to work part-time again, I plan to go back to volunteering.
Yes Mrs and Mr ETT … it is a shame that potentially good teachers are defeated by the system. It is great that you have found some satisfaction (and freedom!) from volunteering. It is a common refrain that I here from colleagues who are teachers “If only we were able to concentrate on the teaching …”. Instead of reams of “faux” documentation and countless meetings.
yes education is important. crutial even. would love to see a correlation between all these smart asia kids and happiness. having great education is good, but lessons of life and happiness don t seem to go that far in these countries IMO.
Yes Grogounet … education results on a test score are unlikely to be correlated with happiness … Happiness is much more complicated see post.
I 100% agree on the lack of Financial Literacy training in Australian Schools. It should also be taught again prior to buying property (and taking out a massive mortgage) an having kids. Here is my vision for our great country https://www.mawermoney.com/vision/
To paraphrase the words of the great HG Nelson … you can’t fit a cigarette paper between our views on this … Nice site Mr Mawer, very stylish and worthy.
Nice article Slack Investor and I totally agree. Education is one of the key things to set up a generation for their whole lives and it seems like it’s not working well at the moment for whatever reason. Maybe it’s a lack of motivation from youngsters (already have a good life provided by parents, or devices causing a distraction). Maybe it’s that teachers aren’t as good as they could be, like you say, should go the Singapore route.
Either way, not a great sign.
Mr DDU
Thanks … and “maintain the rage” Mr DDU