The future success of a nation is reflected by a youth that is well prepared to effectively query challenging circumstances, identify problems, and provide workable solutions in a good time. These are skills that are natured in maths, science, arts, engineering, among a plethora of other disciplines.

The recently released PISA 2018 results indicate that the mean performance for Australian Students in maths, reading, and science, has been progressively declining. These are the worst results that have ever been recorded in the Oceania country, bringing to question the quality of Australia education.

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The recently released PISA results are alarming

One of the questions that could currently be ringing in your mind is, ‘what does PISA stand for?’ The Programme for International Students Assessment is an initiative of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), that evaluates the extent to which students have acquired knowledge in various disciplines.

The survey is conducted every three years and focuses on global proficiency in mathematics, science, reading, and innovation among 15-years olds. Australia has been an active participant in PISA since its inception in 2000. However, since the year 2003, the country has been persistently declining in performance across all disciplines examined by the study.

Compared to the previous international results, Australia has attained its worst results in the recently released 2018 PISA rankings, performing as highlighted below compared to the OECD average:

 

Discipline Points The decline in scores since 2003
Reading 503 26
Science 503 24
Mathematics 491 33

 

Further interpretations related from the above statistics include:

● Compared to the top-performer-Singapore, Australian students are one year three months behind in reading

● For the first time, the students failed to exceed the OECD average in mathematics

● The students are three years back in maths

● They are one year nine months behind in scientific literacy

Classroom discipline has equally declined as Australia ranks a lowly 70th out of 77 in OECD

OECD’s 2018 index of disciplinary climate released on 4th December 2019 ranked Australia 70th out of the 77 participating nations. The index is part of PISA’s evaluation service in which the country equally reported its worst performance.

Out of the 60000 15-year-old students from the contributing nations captured by the survey, a majority of Australian students attested that teachers were not being listened to. Furthermore, the study revealed that it takes longer for a class to quieten once a teacher steps in for a lesson.

Recently, ‘classroom discipline’ has been one of the most professional sought topics in essay writing service, an indication of the rise in noise and disorder in learning spaces in some countries. Nations that performed worse than Australia in classroom unruliness include Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, France, Spain, the Philippines, and Greece. Various stakeholders are leveraging on custom essay writing services to equally understand the state of classroom discipline in these nations.

There should be an urgent rethink of the system to subvert the new alarming milestone

Despite the OECD report not making a direct link between Australia’s classroom discipline and the country’s declining academic performance, students cannot learn effectively in an unruly environment. Regardless of how professional and committed teachers maybe, they need a well-organized atmosphere to impart knowledge to the millennial generation of learners effectively.

Based on the recently released PISA indices, it is time to reorganize the system to improve the service delivered by teachers and performance registered by students. The country can benchmark from other nations that registered high ranks such as Singapore and Hong kong. For instance, Hong Kong, a country that recorded the same performance as Australia in reading between 2001 and 2006, implemented a new approach to teaching and reading Chinese in their system. They shifted from memorizing single Chinese characters to students grasping the structure of the Chinese language through reading, writing, and speaking.

On a different note, Singapore focused on the quality of its teaching and made sure their resolutions are implemented at the classroom level. Its schools are among the best performing in the world because they decide to recruit the best talents into teaching and ensure that they well compensated for their assignments.

It is time to change the attitude of the students and address their shortcomings

The book Outliers is rooted in the belief that ‘successful people are made,’ a notion that has been confirmed by the top-performing nation in the 2018 PISA survey. Singapore did not just attain the number one rank from nowhere; they earned it.

To improve the performance of Australia’s next generation of professionals, various stakeholders should not only focus on the system but also the student. Right from home, a learning mindset and a culture of discipline should be instilled in the young generation.

Additionally, open and closed forums such as essay writing platforms can be implemented in proactively collecting student’s views on how to help improve the quality of learning encountered within and beyond the classrooms.