There is good news and bad news for Australia in the latest Pisa – Programme for International Student Assessment – results released this week by the OECD. First the good: Australia is back in the OECD’s top 10 education countries. Now the bad: that good news is not because our education systems are performing better than before. Australia is still sliding downwards – but other countries are doing so faster. Many of them much faster. PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. It has been adminis ..read more

Teaching and parenting have one thing in common: Both are much more complicated today than they used to be. The months of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic were concrete proof of that for many of us. In The Drum, Meg Southcombe spoke about the lack of respect that many teachers experience in their work. It is true that teachers feel increasing pressures from the system above and from parents on the side. Moreover, there are more and more children who need special support and love in school. It is easy to join Meg in calling for greater appreciation of our teachers. The problem with ..read more

Schools have traditionally been responsible for imparting knowledge and skills necessary for a good education and a prosperous life to children and young people. Not long ago, schools were the primary places where youngsters acquired the knowledge required to succeed in the future. During that era, parents played a crucial role in their children’s overall education, including instilling values, shaping behaviour, promoting health, and teaching various life skills for daily living. However, this paradigm has shifted. Students today can acquire most of the knowledge and skills that were once exc ..read more

“If we don’t fix inequities in our schools soon, we’ll pay a high price for that later.” This is what I heard from a primary school principal during my recent visit to her regional school. “But schools alone can’t do that. It takes the whole village,” she said. She is right. Family background is far more important in explaining what students learn at school than people think. This has remained a solid empirical-research finding for the past half century. Too often, however, the important role that out-of-school factors such as family, community and a student’s peer group play in stud ..read more

  Dear Minister, As a frequent visitor to your country and an admirer of its cultural richness, I was delighted to read of your recent appointment as minister of education. In your previous job, you often voiced your concerns about the state of education in your country. I have also read your writings where you call into question old ways of thinking about education and are highly critical of how education policy has been put into practice in your country. In a recent interview you spoke passionately of your sense of frustration and even anger that past efforts to improve the education sy ..read more

A decade ago paediatricians noticed a worrying trend: children’s mental health was beginning to decline. Anxiety disorders, depression and loneliness had suddenly become more common among teenagers around the world. Health experts and researchers didn’t know exactly why that happened. Some said that these were simply statistical variations without any particular cause. Others believed there must be something new in children’s lives that explains those negative trends in wellbeing and health. Recently, it is not just children’s wellbeing and health that have been at risk. Teachers and pare ..read more

With Sharon Goldfeld The cold fact is that despite continuous reforms and growing investments over the past two decades, educational performance – and especially equitable performance – of Australia’s schools isn’t improving. Indeed, in many ways it is getting worse. Consider these statistics. Since 2000 Australia’s PISA scores have dropped 33 – 24 points in maths, reading, and science. Students’ performance in literacy and numeracy since 2008 when National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) was inaugurated has been stagnant or declining (ACARA database). During the ..read more

Originally published in ABC Education on 24 April 2023 When I ask my own children what they would like to change in Australian primary schools, they say, “We want more play!” My children are like yours: they tell the truth about things that matter to them. That is why I have been so curious to learn what other parents and their children think about their schools. My anecdotal evidence suggests that more time to play would make schools better. At the Gonski Institute for Education, our survey of Australian adults just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic showed that 93 per cent think play h ..read more

“What do you think about Australian school education?” Ever since I came to Australia with my wife and two school-aged children five years ago, this is the question I have been asked more often than any other. Before that I worked as schoolteacher and senior education policymaker in Finland. It seems like people think that Finnish education is a good benchmark to check how school education here compares to the best of class. After carefully exploring tens of Australian schools and having my own children attend some of them, my verdict is: We have a world-class school education – but not for ev ..read more

Wolves live in extended families called packs. That helps wolves to defend their territories and ensure the protection of, and food for, the young. Cooperation is why wolves survive in harsh conditions in wilderness. Sometimes a wolf leaves the pack and becomes a lone wolf. A lone wolf is often stronger than the others in the pack. In the wolf kingdom a lone wolf can also be a curious young adult that wants to explore new territories rather than follow the others. Sometimes it is a rebel that doesn’t get along with the rest. In this blog I wonder whether Australia has become an educational lon ..read more