Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last night, the 2022 OECD Program for International Student Assessment results was released. Australia's results were relatively stable in reading, science and mathematics, but, as Lisa De Bortoli, senior research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, pointed out:

While it's encouraging that Australia's results have stabilised, it's important to recognise that our position in the top 10 is largely due to the performance of other countries dropping below ours.

Just over half of Australian students achieved the National Proficient Standard—51% in maths, 58% in science and 57% in reading …

In other words, just under half of our 15-year-old students are completing year 10 schooling and coming out functionally illiterate and innumerate. That's not good enough.

The report also showed that throwing money at our education system wasn't going to make this any better. What is far more important is how the money is invested in our education system. We know that spending on education has increased in recent years, while outcomes have largely not improved. What we need are genuine reforms to address the issues that we know are affecting our classrooms. What we need is the political willpower to do the hard yards, put aside a blind devotion to ideology and actually focus on the solutions that we have at hand. Responsible investment into education, initial teacher education reform and evidence based methods of pedagogy are the key to Australia's success. We have the tools that we need in front of us. We just need to be willing to put them to work.