Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Gichuhi for her question and for her enduring interest and commitment to excellence across Australia's school education system.

Indeed, it was in the pursuit of excellence that this government asked Mr David Gonski and a panel of educators, principals and experts to come together to look at how it is that we can best turn around what has been a stagnation, a decline in performance, in many areas and ensure that we have true excellence and true delivery of growth in student performance in return for the record and growing investment that Australian taxpayers and parents are making in their children's education.

The review did indeed paint a gloomy picture in terms of performance over a recent period of time, that over the last 15 years Australian student performance has dropped from fourth in the world for reading to 16th, from 11th in the world for mathematics to 25th and from eighth in science to 14th, according to the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment. Notwithstanding the efforts of many hardworking school leaders, principals, teachers and students themselves, there are too many schools in which the Gonski panel identified from research and evidence that students are cruising or coasting rather than being extended to their full capability; that our average performance across school systems is down; and that our lowest achievers are performing at even lower levels and our higher achievers not at such high levels. Yet over the 10 years from 2006, while Australia's GDP grew by 67 per cent, federal investment in education grew by 117 per cent. It is very clear that we have had a sustained period, under governments of different persuasions, of record growing investment in school education, and that compared to other OECD countries that often outperform us Australia spends more on our schooling and yet is receiving poorer results. That's why we committed to undertake this review to identify how we get the best bang for our buck—how we get the best outcome for Australian students. (Time expired)