‘Worrying’ fall in school results
Disproportionate rates of bullying, poor classroom environments and truancy could be reasons student achievements are in a ‘‘worrying’’ decline.
A global education report has showed an overall decline in New Zealand’s level of reading, mathematics and science since 2009 – equating to a loss of about 3⁄4 of a year’s worth of a student’s schooling against 2009 results.
The Ministry of Education’s evidence, data and knowledge deputy secretary, Dr Craig Jones, said the results were cause for concern.
Data pointed to key issues in New Zealand’s education system, including an alarming rise in bullying, gaps between high and low achievers, drastically deteriorating attitudes towards reading, a rise in truancy, poor learning environments and a negative attitude toward school.
However, the 2018 trends for reading (top 15 – equal 12th with Sweden), mathematics (top 30 – 27th) and science (top 15 – 12th) in New Zealand were still above average in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results, which covered 78 countries and were measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Of the OECD countries alone, New Zealand ranked fifth across all three subjects in the report.
Estonia was ranked first and the United States fell beneath Aotearoa. New Zealand dropped back to 12th place overall when OECD Partner countries were included – with China (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang) taking the top spot.
In a presentation yesterday, Jones said it was positive to see the country’s education system continue to perform above average. But he warned of complacency, likening the danger of focusing on relatively unchanged data from Pisa reports in 2015 and 2012 to slowly boiling a frog alive.
It was difficult to know from the data what was causing the decline, Jones said.
‘‘We still don’t entirely know what drove that big drop between
2009 and 2012 . . . There’s no doubt a complex set of things going on.
‘‘This helps us to understand some of those [things] . . . Some we can have influence over if we do the right things.’’
New Zealand was one of seven countries that saw a decline in the mean performance across reading, maths and science alongside Australia, Finland, Iceland, Korea, the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic. Seven countries saw improvements.
New Zealand’s mean score in reading was 506, 494 in maths and
508 in science.
New Zealand Post Primary Teacher’s Association (PPTA) president Jack Boyle said the Pisa results were a yardstick.
The Ministry of Education was building frameworks he believed would help to change the trends, including the Tomorrow’s Schools Review, the Curriculum Progress and Achievement, the Disability and Learning Support Action Plan, and Ma¯ori and Pacific education projects.
Bullying
New Zealand has a bullying problem and nothing has improved since the last Pisa results.
In fact, the trends in schools have become worse.
The number of students who reported being victims of any type of bullying at least a few times a month was 32 per cent – a significant rise since 2015.
our
There was a 6 per cent rise in the number of students being ‘‘made fun of’’ (23 per cent), a
2 per cent rise in students being ‘‘hit or pushed’’ (9 per cent) and a
2 per cent rise in the number of students who were ‘‘threatened’’
(10 per cent).
In 2009, 13.2 per cent of students said they did not feel safe at school but that has risen to
19.4 per cent. Ma¯ori were more likely not to feel safe at school.
Truancy
The number of students skipping school is on the rise. The Pisa results are consistent with the ministry’s data, Jones said.
‘‘Attendance is very strongly related to achievement outcomes and there is no safe level of nonattendance.’’
Learning environment
Many students have been struggling to find a ‘‘sense of belonging’’. The report showed a huge downturn in students’ positivity towards making friends and feeling liked, and this cut across gender and ethnicity.
Students were more likely to feel awkward, out of place, lonely and like an outsider.