Students’ literacy skills are in decline

A recent report has shown that the literacy knowledge and skills of students in Australia and around the world are in decline. But it is the varying results of students within Australia that are concerning.

In May this year, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) released its full report on Australia’s results from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The extensive study, arranged by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), brings together and compares literacy data (scientific, mathematical and reading) from 15-year-olds around Australia and 71 other countries.

There are a range of reports and data sets that look at how school students are faring here and internationally. The PISA is different, however, because it measures how ready and able students are to use their knowledge and skills in real life situations.

The PISA assesses students in three key areas – scientific literacy, reading literacy and mathematical literacy. As well as comparing country-to-country results, data in the ACER’s report is broken down and compared by:

• state
• school type
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background
• location
• background – Australian-born students compared to first generation and those born overseas
• socioeconomic background.

In Australia, 758 schools and a total of 14,530 students were part of the PISA in 2015. Australia included a larger sample to make sure contributions from rural areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students were large enough to make the data reliable.

The results showed that the knowledge and skills of Australian students had gone down in all three literacy areas, however, our overall results were still above the OECD average in most cases.

There were alarming, and often large, differences in the results between some states and between school types and socioeconomic areas. Tasmania showed the lowest results compared to the other states, and government schools lagged well behind Catholic and independent schools. The disparity between the results of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and non-Indigenous students, as well as regional and metropolitan students were what we’ve unfortunately come to expect (but not accept).

The results between Australian-born, first generation and students born overseas were surprising. First-generation students’ results were well above Australian-born students in all areas, while Australian-born students had similar results with students born overseas – even in reading literacy.

The following are the some of the key findings.

• Internationally: Australia had a higher result than 50 other countries and a similar result to countries including the UK, Germany and Korea. However, we were well behind nine countries including Singapore, Finland, Canada and Japan.
• State differences: The proportion of students who reached a proficient level in scientific literacy ranged from 48 per cent in Tasmania to 68 per cent in the ACT.
• Differences between the type of school: Fifty-three per cent of students in government schools were proficient in science, compared to 66 per cent in Catholic schools and 78 per cent in independent schools.

• Internationally: Australia had a higher result than 44 other countries and a similar result to countries including the Netherlands, France, USA and the UK. However, we were well below 11 countries including Hong Kong, Finland, Ireland, Korea and New Zealand.
• State differences: The proportion of students who reached a proficient level in reading literacy ranged from 48 per cent in Tasmania and the Northern Territory to 65 per cent in the ACT. There was a decline in results from the 2000 PISA in all states except for Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
• Differences between the type of school: Fifty-three per cent of students in government schools were proficient in reading, compared to 67 per cent in Catholic schools and 77 per cent in independent schools.

• Internationally: Australia had a higher result than 39 other countries and a similar result to countries including Austria, New Zealand and Sweden. However, we were well below 19 countries including Singapore, Macao, Switzerland and Poland, and results have gone down significantly since 2003.
• State differences: The proportion of students who reached a proficient level in mathematical literacy ranged from 44 per cent in Tasmania to 61 per cent in the ACT.
• Differences between the type of school: Forty-eight per cent of students in government schools were proficient in mathematics, compared to 60 per cent in Catholic schools and 73 per cent independent schools.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students had significantly lower results in each of the literacy types compared to non-Indigenous students.
• Students were also under-represented at the higher end of the results and over-represented at the lower end.

• Students in metropolitan schools performed significantly higher than students from regional or remote schools.
• There was also a greater percentage of high performers from metropolitan schools compared to students from regional or remote schools.

• First-generation students performed much higher than Australian-born students in all the literacy areas. Students born overseas also had lower results than first-generation students, but had similar results to Australian-born students.
• There was a greater percentage of high-performing first-generation students and students born overseas compared to Australian-born students.
• For reading literacy, 60 per cent of Australian-born students achieved a proficient level, compared to 66 per cent of first-generation students and 59 per cent of students born overseas.

• The effects of Australian student’s socioeconomic background were higher than the average across the OECD.
• Victoria was the only state where the connection between socioeconomic background and performance was weaker than the average across the OECD. This classed Victoria as high-equity.
• Tasmanian schools had a larger percentage of disadvantaged students than any other state, followed by Queensland. The ACT had a much greater percentage of students with a high socioeconomic background than any other state.

These results show the strong correlation, in most cases, between background and performance. This is particularly true between high and low socioeconomic backgrounds, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and non-Indigenous students. While this is not new information, the report does show how wide these gaps are and how we compare to other countries. Fair and equal education and opportunities will help to close these gaps, but how we do this is still an ongoing problem.

You can read the full report on the ACER website