Lessons from Asia show way forward for schools

AUSTRALIA is focusing on education reforms that have limited value, while successful Asian countries focus on improving how students learn.

International student assessments

AUSTRALIA is focusing on education reforms that have limited value, such as school funding, teacher pay and principal autonomy, while successful Asian countries are forging further ahead with their singular focus on improving how students learn.

A report to be released today by independent think tank the Grattan Institute examines four of the five top-performing school systems in the world - Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea - and notes the absence of Australian preoccupations such as public versus private schools, smaller class sizes and computers in classrooms.

Grattan program director of school education Ben Jensen said the Asian systems placed student learning at the centre of education policy and discarded programs or policies that failed to lead to an improvement.

"We're spending money in the wrong places," Dr Jensen said. "We are talking about the same things, about teacher quality, but not making the connection into the classrooms.

"In recent years, Australia has argued over and allocated substantial resources to public versus private schools, smaller class sizes, school autonomy and computers in schools.

"The Gonski review of school funding, teacher bonuses, hiring and firing teachers is not the main game. They are all important but the evidence is clear that their impact on learning is at best negligible compared with the focus in the Asian systems.

"The lesson from Asia is that the only way to improve students' learning is by improving teaching. Reforming teaching is about behavioural and cultural change, which means changing what teachers do, day in, day out, in every school."

OECD figures show that Australian students are not only well behind their Asian counterparts in reading, maths and science but on some measures have also gone backwards. The average 15-year-old in Canberra in 2009, for example, was reading at a level six months below the average 15-year-old in 2000, despite increased spending of 48 per cent. The top 10 per cent of 15-year-old maths students in Australia are more than two years behind their peers in Shanghai.

Dr Jensen said while Australian policymakers and education experts were acquainted with research on improving teaching and schools, education reforms rarely penetrated the classroom walls.

"We know what matters but we don't do it," he said. "There's a disconnect between policy and what happens in the classroom.

"When we reformed our curriculum, it was all about what to teach. When Hong Kong reformed its curriculum, it was all about how you teach."

Dr Jensen said surveys of new teachers in Australia showed a large proportion felt they lacked the necessary classroom skills, but universities did little to respond.

In Singapore, schools report to the government and the universities on how well-prepared new teachers are and as a result courses such as the history of education are dropped in favour of courses teaching practical skills.

Grattan Institute researchers spent about 12 months researching schools and education policy in the four systems, which dominate the international tests run by the OECD, the Program of International Student Assessment.

Shanghai and Singapore surprised the world by their strong performance when they participated for the first time in 2009 in PISA, which tests 15-year-olds in about 65 countries in reading, maths and science.

Shanghai topped the world in all areas, beating Finland, which had dominated first place since PISA began in 2000, while Singapore placed fifth in reading, second in maths and fourth in science. Korea and Hong Kong also scored significantly higher than Australia.

By contrast, Australia was one of five countries that reported significantly lower scores in the PISA reading tests in 2009, dropping almost 15 points between 2000 and 2009, while Korean students gained about 15 points, and Hong Kong students' average scores rose about eight points.

Dr Jensen said the most important reforms in the Asian systems had been to improve the training of teachers.

Teachers' training does not finish when they graduate from university but continues throughout their career, with research and professional learning centred on schools and classrooms.

While education research in Australia often has little to do with what happens in schools, in Singapore the government provides considerable funding for research specifically linked to improving student performance.

Teacher promotion is linked to the quality of their research and the impact it has in the classroom.

The lessons from Asia include: university courses that focus on teaching skills for the classroom rather than educational philosophy; and providing every teacher, including senior teachers, with a mentor.

Teaching in the Asian systems is truly collaborative, with senior teachers observing classes taught by junior teachers and providing feedback, and junior teachers observing their mentors as they teach.

Dr Jensen said the success of the Asian school systems was not due to money, with many spending less than the OECD average, nor due to cultural differences, with countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore recording a turnaround in results in five years.

He said the fall in Australia's performance in PISA occurred despite a 44 per cent increase in spending on education between 2000 and 2008.

While some might be tempted to put the Asian success story down to cultural differences or an emphasis on rote learning, Dr Jensen dismissed them as significant factors.

The Grattan report says the Asian systems have clear education strategies that include a strong emphasis on implementing change in the classroom, with everything judged on its capacity to improve learning.

"Reform of teaching should not be confused with a focus on teachers," it says.

"In many systems, problems of underperformance still focus on teachers.

"This leads to policy debate

of how best to dismiss teachers and how to measure their effectiveness.

"In contrast, a focus on learning leads to programs to improve learning in under-performing schools and classrooms."