Australia has managed to improve equity in education, but that hasn’t stopped it slipping on performance according to new research from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The OECD analysed the link between a student’s academic performance and their socio-economic background, based on test results from its Programme for International Student Assessment in 2009.
The research showed that across OECD countries socio-economically disadvantaged students are twice as likely to be among the poorest performers in reading compared to advantaged students.
Advantaged students score at a level that puts them around two years ahead of their disadvantaged peers, according to the analysis.
But the results also showed some countries are doing a better job at closing the gap, whilst maintaining performance, than others. These include Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, China, Iceland, Korea, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Australia managed a small increase in equity in the years between 2000 and 2009, but saw a statistically significant decline in performance.
Australia sits alongside the US and New Zealand in the quadrant of countries with high performance and low equity levels.
Equity in education in Australia could be aligned with the outflow of public funds into private schools, said Dr David Zyngier, senior lecturer in the faculty of education at Monash University.
“With 35% of school children now going to private schools it’s created substantial equity problems in the public sector.”
Dr Zyngier added that the performance issue could not be solved without also addressing the issue of equity.
“Australia is still at a low equity level and we’ve seen a drop in our results over the last seven years.”
However Dr Zyngier said the implementation of the Gonski recommendations for school funding could change the situation.
“It will have a significant impact because if extra funds are going to be targeting disadvantaged students, then those children who are dragging down the average over a period of time will improve in their results.”
Changes in Australia’s education performance have been fairly small, said Professor John Polesel, with equity the more important of the two issues for the country.
Professor Polesel, who teaches education policy at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education, said one of the best ways to improve the results was to reduce poverty.
Dr Zyngier agreed.
“As Connell wrote in 1993 in Schools and Social Justice: “if a poor child wants to do well in education then they should have chosen richer parents”.
“International research evidence indicates that the single most important factor impacting on a child’s education outcomes is socio-economic status. In Australia in particular this factor is even more significant than other countries indicating the gap between equity and performance is indeed very large,” Dr Zyngier said.
Australia had consistently done very well on the PISA performance, but it hadn’t done consistently well in terms of equity, Professor Polesel said.
“When you compare it with countries that are quite similar, such as Canada, they seem to be doing the equity aspect of it more successfully than we are.”
Professor Polesel also highlighted the funding issue, pointing out that countries we are often compared with fund schools differently.
Geographic segregation, with a concentration of students with a higher level of cultural capital in some schools than in others, was also an issue for Australia, he said.
“What we can say with some confidence is overall Australia’s actually doing quite well.
“Of the countries that are ahead of us, most are Asian countries and you’ve got a different cultural view of what education is and how it works.”
For example, Professor Polesel said, Korea puts considerable resources into private education through families paying for things like private tutoring.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Can we have some links to the research/data please?
Charis Palmer
News Editor at The Conversation
Apologies Kim - the link has now been added
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Thanks Chris. They sure do some nifty analysis, particularly the visuals. If, after reading the linked summary, anyone is interested in a much deeper look at the equity issue, this PISA document
"Overcoming Social Background: Equity in Learning Opportunities and Outcomes" is brilliant. It "looks at how successful education systems moderate the impact of social background and immigrant status on student and school performance." It's only 224 pages short! :
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/48852584.pdf
Craig Minns
Self-employed
I'm glad to hear that equity based on SES is being addressed. Shame about the boys though...
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Craig, actually the "equity" issue in Australia's PISA performance is not as great as we are led to believe. For starters, Australian income distribution in "below-average inequality" (ie high income equity). Percentage of variance in student performance explained by students'
SES background is only 13%, below the OECD average of 14%. (p.34) Also the strength of the relationships between Australian reading scores and a kid's SES background is not only below the OECD average, but statistically weak.Soon that indicator, Australia is a high-equity/high-performance country. see p.31
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/48852584.pdf
Craig Minns
Self-employed
Kim, try as I might, I can't parse that.
Are you saying that SES is not a good predictor of performance in the Australian case?
Michael Brown
Professional, academic, company director
Unfortunately the Gonski review was limited to looking at funding options only. What we really need is an investigation into why education standards are drifitng despite all the extra funding over the last ten years. Until proven otherwise, the responsibilty must rest with politicans and education bureaucrats. Lack of money and the quality and dedication of teachers are clearly not the issues.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Indeed, it's a pity Gonski didn't look into one of the main findings of the latest PISA results: student performance is limited by the quality of the teacher-selection and training system. Very relevant for Australia at the moment.
"Third, the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and principals, since student learning is ultimately the product of what goes on in classrooms. Corporations, professional partnerships and national governments all know that they have…
Read moreJohn Perry
Teacher
Aside from the hint at "performance" pay, that describes Finland.
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
If we want children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds to do better in school, perhaps we should ask people in the professions to sport fluoro vests too, thus making these jobs (and the education one needs to perform them) aspirational to said students? Alternatively, we could make the vests we currently use less desirable?
Trevor McGrath
Pharmacist Hobby:climatology
Tradies are the new middle class, you can not out source the plumber or the Chippy, and its $60 to turn up. Cheers
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
And now they're on contract rates, they see themselves as small businessmen, rather than poor put upon workers, crushed under the tyrannic heel of the ruling classes.
So they now vote for the Libs!
Craig Minns
Self-employed
Actually, Trevor, trades are a losing proposition compared to entering a professional career. the first few years trades people do better, but over time the professional path yields considerably higher remuneration when compared to employment as a tradesman.
The firm that you call to send out the tradesman might well charge what you say, but the tradesman gets only about half of that and he only gets paid if he has work to do, there are very few tradesmen engaged as full-time employees.
I'm afraid you've bought into the propaganda.
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
I suppose it depends on the arrangement the tradie has. If employed by or contracted to an agency, your comments are true.
However, there are tradies who are stricly speaking self employed, SMEs, operating as sole traders or with their own pty ltd. Although many of these borrow the branding benefits of a the franchise system, and also pay associated fees to the brand owners, there are also many who have their own brands. Often with named puns blazened on the side of a panel van or utility.
In both cases, the loss of income is associated with the usual forces that impact small business profit margins and aren't the same issues, per se, as those that impact employees of a larger business structure.
David Arthur
n/a
So long as there is a queue of highly-educated people wanting to migrate to Australia, this nation doesn't need to spend a red cent on education.
Instead of investing in education for its own citizens, all this nation needs to do is tax its educated immigrants, and dribble a bit of dole or pension money out.
That's the lazy choice, one that implicitly accepts that 5% unemployment is "full" employment - that's 1 in 20 Australians who could work, and might even want to work.
Trevor McGrath
Pharmacist Hobby:climatology
The rent seekers do not want the unemployment rate below 5%, other wise it changes the equation from people competing for jobs, keeps wages down, to employers competing for workers, pushes wages up. Cheers
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
Additionally, educated migrants are not desired either.
What is desired are well off temporary residents on working or student visas who can pay 45% tax rate and be paid less than Australian workers by taking advantage of the lingusitic barriers of the workers in question.
Meanwhile, international students are charged more in tuition than local students. A tidy quick profit is made, the student gets fed up with being exploited while they're here, and they take their training back to the home country.
Everyone gets ripped off, except, the 'rent seekers'
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
Why are international students fed up? It's not like they have to do any real study here. So long as they're paying, they pass.
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
That's not true, actually. The administration might see it that way but I'm pretty sure the teachers take the quality of work into account.
As for why are these students fed up - even if they were lazy with study, I already pointed out some of the structural issues. An international student is only allowed to work 20 hours per week and is taxed at 45%. They may come from a wealthy family too, but bare in mind its wealthy in the context of their home country, not necessarily wealthy in the…
Read moreTim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
I respectfully disagree. As a recent student who's spent a LOT of time studying with foreign students, I'm 100% sure I'd get a big fat F if I handed in the work they do.
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
That's disappointing. However, although I may be incorrect on that point, I have still cited structural reasons why international students would be fed up enough to go home afterward.
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
Yeah but I don't care about that bit.
Emma Anderson
Artist and Science Junkie
If you'd like more equity in education and employment, that apathy is ill advised.
Stephen McCormick
Ph.D. Candidate in Mathematics
Tim, I'm not sure where you study, but the exams that I mark every semester don't have any indication of the nationality of the person sitting it; this is standard practice at most(all?) universities.
Furthermore, the people assessing the students have no idea who is on HECS and who is paying full fees nor do they see any benefit personally of boosting the marks of international students.
I think your comments here say more about yourself than they do about any of the "foreign students" you've spent time around.
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
And you are unable to tell a native English speaker from a non-native?
Stephen McCormick
Ph.D. Candidate in Mathematics
Perhaps in some disciplines it is more obvious as to whether an exam belongs to a native English speaker or not; I am in a mathematics department, so in most cases I wouldn't be willing to bet on it.
However that is not the main point. The academics marking exams and assignments would have absolutely no reason to grade non-native English speakers any differently.
Jim KABLE
teacher
Further to this and in fact - as anyone with a smidgen of understanding knows - Mathematics is its own language - in some senses - and can be - and is in fact - studied throughout the world in as many languages as their educational institutions. So Stephen is quite right - there is no reason to mark non-native speakers of English any differently. And from years teaching abroad (and TESOL in Australia) I would suggest that mature/abstract thinking/research/studies - too - even if written by OS students in English which requires some careful editing to tease out the ambiguities - so long as the clear basis fits the criteria for the program/course - should equally not be dismissed in the way that Tim seems to suggest/wish.The thing about foreign language study - especially in the target-language home-country - is that it is a continuing thing - an ever-improving thing!
Tim Traynor
Rocket Surgeon
They absolutely DO have a reason: $$$
Stephen McCormick
Ph.D. Candidate in Mathematics
You mean, the big shots in the university are explicitly telling the teaching staff that they must pass a higher percentage of international students? You have to appreciate how ridiculous that sounds.
The cash-flow of the university has little impact on the teaching staff directly; however, if they were to grade international students differently then they would be risking their careers.
Jim KABLE
teacher
To state, yet again, the obvious: (i) Stop funding private non-equitable religious-separatist/class-aspirant educational institutions - so being able to properly fund St State's Comprehensive Grammar Academies! (ii) Give up on the testing/ranking-focussed "training" for international comparison charts/anguished hand-wringing - and allow professional educators to teach their students - to open doorways to understanding across the subject disciplines - and usher the students through to the next level - without all the unnecessary angst and alienation which results from NAPLAN/HSC etc!