Halt the academic freefall

Singapore spends less per student than Australia, has larger classes and pays its teachers less. Read that again. Then wonder why the maths, reading and science skills of the average Australian teenager barely match those of Singapore’s most disadvantaged students. Former Business Council of Australia president and National Commission of Audit chairman Tony Shepherd is right. Australia’s lack of academic competitiveness, which is condemning our children to a second-class future, is a disgrace given the vast investment to date and another $26 billion to be spent.

Suggesting the system lacks intellectual rigour, that many students don’t work hard enough, that some subject curriculums are slack, that too many classes lack discipline and focus or that expectations are too low will draw emotive or hostile responses from teachers. That does not make such propositions untrue, however. In the national interest, Australia must heed the warning of Andreas Schleicher, co-­ordinator of the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment. Without the right skills, he wrote on Wednesday, people end up on the margins of ­society, technological progress does not produce economic growth and social cohesion will be lost. It is also alarming, as Stefanie Balogh wrote, that the worst drop in Australia’s PISA scores has occurred among its top performers.

It’s time to lift the bar. Unions and the opposition are demanding billions of dollars more from taxpayers. That would be no panacea. Mr Schleicher suggests Australia look to the high-performing systems of Singapore and China, whose communities value education, believe in the success of every student and make teaching intellectually attractive. Teachers unions, as Assistant Minister to the Treasurer Michael Sukkar says, are blocking tough reforms to improve teacher quality and empower principals to halt the slide. So are sector leaders such as Greg Whitby, executive director of Catholic Education in Parramatta, who opposes national literacy and numeracy testing, the HSC and students having “to sit down and do as you’re told when you’re told’’. It’s time they were.