An overhaul of Australia’s curriculum is needed to reverse a long-term decline in international education test results, a new report suggests.
The findings, released by the education research and consulting group Learning First on Monday benchmarked Australia’s science against seven comparable education systems: England, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the US and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Quebec.
The report found Australian students were learning 44 science topics in their first nine years of schooling compared with an average of 74.
It also found the process through which the science curriculum was developed was “broken” and not based on leading research or quality benchmarking.
Compared with students in the highest-performing country, Singapore, Australians were more than a year behind in reading, about three years behind in mathematics and almost two years behind in science.
