Australian Students Fall Behind Other Countries in Maths and Science

Australian students have gotten worse at maths and science as other countries have improved, in a study that measures the capacity of students worldwide in mastering both subjects.

The study, conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research, reveals that from the four-yearly Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2015), Australian students have fallen behind other countries that have improved in the rankings.

The study looked at how well Year 4 and Year 8 students are at their maths and science lessons, asking questions like how many legs an insect has, which animals lay eggs and what the angles in a triangle add up to.

The country ranked 27th in both Year 4 Maths and Year 4 Science with Singapore topping both lists.

The council said the results should be a wake-up call.

Sue Thomson, a director at the council said the results, which state that between a quarter and a third of Australian students are still not meeting the proficient standard, was concerning.

“In terms of children in classrooms, that’s probably seven or eight students in your average 25-student classroom. That is a big worry and it’s not something that’s changed over the last 20 years,”  Dr Thomson told AAP.

However, Dr Thomson says the results only reveal the problem, not solutions. She explained that it’s possible that Australia has not set the bar high enough, such as setting the ‘proficient’ standards just above the TIMSS intermediate level. “Since TIMSS 2011 we haven’t really put in much that would lift performance at those lower benchmarks so nothing really has happened,” Dr Thomson said.

She also pointed out the importance of socio-economic background – measured by the number of books at home – of a student, saying that if only the richest students were surveyed, the country would be among the top eight countries in the world, but those from poorer families would be within the bottom quarter. “I’m not necessarily going to relate it to funding, however we’re back at the table insofar as school funding goes and we’re still finding that disadvantaged students from disadvantaged schools are those who are not achieving well in these sort of tests,” Dr Thomson said. “They’re the ones we need to be targeting to try and improve their achievement,” she added,

Education Minister Simon Birmingham said that he will use the maths and science results as a key part of his mid-December discussions with state counterparts about a new funding agreement.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk