The class disadvantage

Students are struggling to learn in classrooms that are more disruptive than in other OECD countries, a global study has revealed.

And the lack of discipline isn’t just confined to disadvantaged schools either, with one in three students from wealthy schools reporting “noise and disorder” during class-time and students not listening to teachers in most or every lesson.

Bullying is also a problem, especially in primary school, with 20 per cent of Australian Year 4 students reporting that they are bullied almost weekly.

The findings, released mid-March, come from analysis of the 2015 results of the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

It confirms that the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students has remained relatively unchanged for 15 years.

Sue Thomson, director of educational monitoring and research at the Australia Council for Education Research, says the situation will remain unchanged while “disadvantage remains an issue.”

Image: Getty

"PISA shows that the school a student attends has an impact on outcomes. Disadvantaged students in average socio-economic level schools, for example, are almost a year of schooling higher than those in disadvantaged schools.” Dr Thomson said.

On average, she says, disadvantaged students “like mathematics and science less, are less confident, value mathematics and science less, and have a lower average achievement than their advantaged peers.”

The report also highlighted some concerns, with 50 percent of Year 8 students reporting not liking mathematics and 43 percent claiming to lack confidence in science. For year 4 students, the numbers were a little lower, with 27 percent not liking maths and 20 percent lacking confidence in science.

Outside of metropolitan areas, where school communities are often at a greater disadvantage, the situation is even more troubling, with little to no movement in proficiency standards for 20 years.

Image: Getty

The situation is the same for Indigenous students, says Dr Thomson. “Substantially fewer achieve the TIMMS Intermediate international benchmark—the proficient standard for Australia—than their non-Indigenous peers.”

Last year, OECD director for education and skills, Andreas Schleicher, lambasted Australia for letting education standards slip below global standards, a declining path he claims Australia has been on for some time.

In PISA, Australia placed just above the OECD average, coming 14th in science, 25th in mathematics and 16th in reading. Compared to top-performer, Singapore, Australian students lag behind their Singaporean counterparts an equivalent 1½ years in science, a year in reading and almost 2⅓ years in maths.

The TIMMS results were not much better and, according to Dr Thomson, a “wake-up call” for Australia that education standards are “slipping backwards.”

More than 580,000 students in Years 4 and 8 from participating countries took part in the TIMMS assessment in 2015, including a national representative sample of about 16,000 Australian students from 572 schools.

PISA assessed more than half a million students across 72 countries and economies, including approximately 14,500 students from 750 Australian schools.

Further reading:

www.acer.edu.au/timss

www.acer.edu.au/ozpisa