F for nation, F- for state

TASMANIAN students are trailing their mainland counterparts in literacy and numeracy, according to a major new international report that also shows Australian schools are being outperformed by the rest of the world.

Australian students are about a year behind in key subjects, with scores in reading, maths and science dropping to their lowest levels since testing began, according to the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Six per cent of Tasmanian students tested were marked as high performers in mathematical literacy — the lowest of any state or territory. In comparison 15 per cent of ACT students were high performers.

Tasmania also had the lowest number of high performers in reading literacy — 10 per cent. ACT had the highest at 21 per cent.

More than 600,000 15-yearold students in 79 countries and economies took part in PISA 2018, including 14,273 Australian students in 740 schools. In contrast to NAPLAN, which tests skills, PISA looks at how the students can apply their reading, maths and science lessons to real life.

For the first time Australia has failed to meet the OECD average in maths and was one of seven countries that declined across all three subjects.

Australia’s maths performance is down in all states and territories, with significant declines observed in Tasmania as well as South Australia, NSW, Western Australia and the ACT. The smallest decline was recorded in Victoria.

Education experts are calling on governments to recognise the report as “the line in the sand”. PISA national project manager Sue Thomson said the biggest surprise was that Australia has not beaten the OECD average for maths.

“For me that is a line in the sand. I don’t want to be reporting next time we are below the OECD average,” Dr Thompson said.

“There are a number of countries that have improved while we have not.”

Czech Republic, Estonia,

Macao (China), Switzerland and Belgium were behind Australia in the original report in 2000 and are now outperforming the nation in maths.

Education Minister Dan Tehan said the Government was still on track to implement Gonski 2.0 reforms, in particular around learning progressions, that it hoped would lift standards.

“These results should have alarm bells ringing,” he said.