Australia’s performance in international student achievement tests – another perspective

Image source: Boston College

There has been considerable public discussion about Australia’s relatively poor performance in recently released international student achievement tests, with one newspaper describing the results as ‘Australia’s disaster in education’. These results have also called into question the Government’s aim to be in the top five countries on reading, mathematics and science by 2025. But just how bad are these results?

PISA – more than just league tables?

Image source: Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 

In announcing the Government’s response to the Gonski Review, Prime Minister Gillard stated that the aim of the new National Plan for School Improvement ‘is to ensure that by 2025 Australia is ranked as a top 5 country in the world for the performance of our students in Reading, Science, Mathematics’.

Much of the discussion about the Australian school system has focussed on the relative (and absolute) decline of Australia in the results from the triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) over the period 2000 to 2009 despite an increase in real expenditure on school education of 44 per cent over the period. In considering how the school system can be improved, commentators have often looked to the current ‘top 5’ in the PISA rankings—Finland and the four East Asian jurisdictions included in the 2009 survey (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Korea and Singapore).

However, closer analysis of the PISA data suggests that using the PISA assessment league tables may not be the best measure of the quality of school systems.