2011 Monto nominal
A) EXCEPCIONES OPTATIVAS BAJO NIIF
performance over the past decade. This decline has varied by
state/territory.
The decline has been greatest in South Australia and Tasmania (at 31 points well over twice the national decline of 13 points), and quite high in New South Wales, the ACT and Western Australia (23, 21 and 16 points respectively). Performance has been relatively stable in the Northern Territory, Victoria and Queensland (Figure 41).
Figure 41: State and territory PISA reading scores
A.2.1
Only four other OECD countries have had significant declines over this
period
Australia is one of only four OECD countries (the others being Ireland, Sweden and the Czech Republic) to have recorded a significant decline in reading performance since 2000 (see Table 10 )119. In the Czech Republic and Ireland it was relatively even at all levels of performance; in Sweden it was greatest at the lowest performance levels.
We note that the Swedish school system has placed a greater emphasis on school choice, and competition between schools during this period.
119
Note that, as mentioned above, decline in mathematics achievement at the 8th grade was observed for Australia in the TIMSS survey between 1995 and 2007, but for 4th grade mathematics there was a significant increase in achievement. (Mullis, I, Martin, M. and Foy, P. ) TIMSS 2007 International Mathematics Report, TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Centre, Boston.
Percentile 10th 25th 75th 90th Australia -10 -8 -18 -18 Czech Republic -11 -20 -12 -12 Sweden -24 -19 -16 -10 Ireland -10 -12 -11 -10
Table 10: Change in scores corresponding to the 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles of reading performance between 2000 and 2009120
A.2.2
What “other advanced OECD countries” can Australia be compared to?
In international comparisons it is common to compare Australia to the OECD average. However, the OECD average contains a number of countries that are not readily comparable to Australia (e.g. Mexico; Chile; Turkey; Portugal) because of their different economic and social circumstances. We therefore have used a smaller group of eight more directly comparable countries as the focus of some more detailed comparisons. These are: Canada; Estonia; Finland; Iceland; the Netherlands; Norway; Sweden; and the United Kingdom.
Of the six socio-economic indicators reported by the OECD for PISA 2009, the one that accounts for the highest proportion of the variance in reading achievement is the proportion of students whose PISA 2009 index of economic, social and cultural status is below -1. Each of the eight countries is very similar to Australia on this indicator, with all nine countries (including Australia) having quite low proportions of very disadvantaged 15 year-olds, and all having less than half the average proportion for OECD countries as a whole. Each is no more than a quarter of a standard deviation higher or lower than Australia’s value of 3.4 (see Appendix A).
While this indicator is not as commonly used as a basis for selecting countries to compare educational outcomes, it has a sounder empirical basis than comparisons based on GDP per capita, population, national governance or similar language and cultural traditions (to cite some alternative criteria that are used in such selections).
By way of example, the proportion of students whose PISA 2009 index of economic, social and cultural status is below -1 accounts for 46% of the variance in 2009 reading achievement (calculated from PISA 2009 Volume 1, Table I.2.20). The share of prime-age adults in the population with a tertiary
qualification accounts for a similar proportion (45%), but it is more likely to be a consequence of educational achievement at age 15 than a cause.
GDP per capita accounts for only six per cent of the variation in 15 year-olds’ reading achievement across OECD countries, and cumulative educational expenditure per student between the ages of six and 15 for only nine per cent of the variation. The proportion of immigrant youth in the population and the size of the 15 year-old cohort (as a proxy for population size) account for only trivial proportions of the variation among countries in reading achievement.
120
Country Proportion of students whose PISA 2009 index of economic, social and cultural status is below -1
Norway 2.4 Australia 3.4 Iceland 3.5 Canada 3.7 Finland 3.9 Sweden 5.1 United Kingdom 5.6 Netherlands 6.5 Estonia 6.7 Denmark 7.2 Japan 7.9 Germany 8.2 Austria 8.4 New Zealand 8.6 Belgium 9.0 Czech Republic 9.2 Slovenia 10.2 Slovak Republic 10.4 United States 10.4 Ireland 10.4 Switzerland 11.1 Israel 12.7 France 13.9 Korea 15.8 Luxembourg 16.1 Greece 17.7
Country Proportion of students whose PISA 2009 index of economic, social and cultural status is below -1
Hungary 19.1 Poland 20.7 Italy 21.4 Spain 29.0 Portugal 33.5 Chile 37.2 Turkey 58.0 Mexico 58.2 Average 14.8 Standard deviation 13.8
1. Shaded cells indicate scores that are within one quarter of a standard deviation of Australia
Table 11: Share of students in their country whose PISA index of economic, social and cultural status is below -1 (%)1
A.2.3
The level of underperformance varies by socio-economic status, location
and many other factors
Using the PISA 2009 data we can see that the level of underperformance (defined as below Level 2) varies greatly. Figure 42 to Figure 47 shows that underperformance is greatest; in Tasmania and the Northern Territory; in the government sectors as a whole compared to the non-government sectors; in remote locations; in the lowest SES quartile students and for those that speak a language other than English at home. Interestingly it is about the same for native born and foreign born students, but significantly less for first generation migrants.
Figure 42: Percentage of 'underperforming' students by state/territory121
Figure 43: Percentage of 'underperforming' students by school system122
121
Thomson, Sue (2011) Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009 the PISA assessment of students’ reading,
mathematical and scientific literacy, ACER Project Publishing Department – Table 3.41 122
Figure 44: Reading literacy percentage of 'underperforming' students by location123
Figure 45: Reading literacy percentage of 'underperforming' students by SES quartile124
123
Ibid. Figure 3.7
124
Figure 46: Reading literacy percentage of 'underperformance' by language background125
Figure 47: Reading literacy percentage of 'underperforming' students by immigrant status126
125
Ibid - Figure 3.10
126