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

I present the report of the Education and Employment References Committee on classroom disruption, together with accompanying documents, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

It gives me great pleasure to rise today and to speak on this report. It was a labour of love for this committee, and I do thank, indeed, the committee for their diligence in the way that they approached this. As I said, it was a real labour of love for the committee. It's taken more than a year to get to this point, and I want to place on the record my thanks to the deputy chair, Senator Tony Sheldon, and my fellow committee members for their input and valued contributions.

This final report builds upon the findings of the interim report. The time we have taken for further analysis of the results indicates that there is a lot of room for improvement in Australian classrooms. Just for context, we extended the reporting date just to allow time for us to get data back from the OECD, who were reporting on the PISA results. They had delayed it because of COVID. They delayed their report, so we wanted to just make sure that we were getting the latest data to fit into this.

On that, our results in maths, science and reading have been declining since 2015, but I do note that in more recent years this has stabilised, since our average 2022 results were about the same as they were in 2018. So it is reassuring to see that our 15-year-olds are scoring higher than the OECD average in these core subjects. However, this doesn't mask the fact that our results have been dropping over two decades. It's also a point to note that our standings are where they are partly because of the fact that other countries have gone backwards. We comparatively, over the COVID period, did better than other countries. We haven't necessarily improved, but we did do better than other countries, and that is worth noting. But we shouldn't allow it to give us any false sense of comfort, because there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done. Maths results dropped 37 points since 2003, from 524 to 487; science fell 20 points, from 527 to 507; and reading is down 30 points, from 528 to 498, since 2000. This is equivalent to the loss of a whole school year over that period. Action is needed now to reverse the long-term declining trend.

To that end, this final report recommends that the Senate continue to prioritise the issue by referring a targeted inquiry into the declining academic standards in Australia. There is a pressing need to ensure that we raise the academic standards and outcomes for all Australian students. This is their future at stake, after all. We need to emphasise our commitment to tackling this before the rot sets in for good, before we're past the point of no return. We owe our children more than that. We owe those tireless and dedicated saints, our wonderful teachers—we have the best teachers in the world—principals, educators and school administrators more than that. This is our turn to do our part to make the tough decisions that need to be made. What are the experiences of our teachers, principals and parents? What are the challenges that they're facing, and what do we need to do, from a policy perspective, to help them overcome these challenges? How can we show them that we have their back?

The survey results from the OECD tell us, really, what we already know, and that is, of course, that our teachers are doing a terrific job. Our teachers are doing a great job, but they do need our support. They do need more support. Sixty-eight per cent of Australian students reported that in most maths lessons their teacher showed an interest in every student's learning. Seventy-seven per cent reported that the teacher went out of their way to give extra help to students who needed it. We know that our teachers are some of the most compassionate and dedicated in the world, and this data only confirms it. But the report also shows that they desperately need support in classrooms, and I know that this is a point that Senator Henderson, the shadow minister for education, has been making very passionately over her time since taking on this portfolio as she has discovered the needs across the country.

The disciplinary climate in our classrooms is holding our students back from achieving at their highest potential. We have a situation where one in four Australian students reported that they could not work well in most or all lessons, because of the disruption that was occurring in classrooms. So we've got to do better than this. We're literally at the bottom of the pack—literally towards the bottom of the table. We need to do much better. A third of students aren't listening to what the teachers say. Almost half are getting distracted either by their own mobile phone device or by another student using a mobile phone device. I do acknowledge that all states either have enacted a mobile phone ban or are in the process of rolling out that policy. That is a good step, and I support all governments of all jurisdictions taking that step and every school for enforcing it. It is a good step in the right direction, because we know that mobile devices have enormous potential to aid students but they also have significant potential to inappropriately distract them in class. We need to make sure that teachers are supported in being able to do that. But I digress.

Australia was ranked 69 out of 76 countries in 2018. Even though PISA have changed the way that they present this data, the results aren't ideal. We are now ranked—listen to this—33 out of 37 OECD countries. To have a higher number is a bad thing. To be a good country, you have to be No. 1. So, at 33 out of 37, we are falling way behind and we are scoring well below the OECD average. Arresting this decline should be the top priority of this government.

There is a lot of big talk coming from the government on school funding, but that priority should be to direct funds where they can be of most use. This includes promoting evidence based methods of teaching, like those in the AERO engaged classrooms report and those that we've recommended in the interim report. The first tranche was released around the same time as the PISA report last year. These good resources that have been developed are backed by the research, and we know that they work. We have several schools across Australia already using these methods and they are achieving outstanding results. Rolling it out quickly and thoroughly across the country is an important and good thing. This isn't really even going to cost any more money. It is just better using the resources that we have now. In fact, they are available on the website right now. We have seen these methods in action. We have seen them produce very real and outstanding results. The emphasis should be on a whole-school approach, a whole-school commitment to behaviour.

The interim report, which we tabled late last year, recommended the introduction of a behaviour curriculum. That would set out the expected behaviours and values of a school and a list of key habits and routines, not a list of prohibited behaviours. It's all about making schools and classrooms safe, predictable and equitable places for all students to learn. We have to set our students up for success. I have said it before and I will say it again. We need the political willpower to follow through with what the evidence is telling us. Nearly half of Australian students achieve the national proficiency standards—51 per cent in maths, 58 per cent in science and 57 per cent in reading. So the status quo isn't working.

We know that evidence based methods and pedagogy like explicit instruction and formative assessment which are based on the science of learning help students learn and retain information. We should mandate these methods. If we know that teachers are crying out for more support then we need to ensure that they are equipped with the skills and the strategies that they will rely on in the classroom by reforming initial teacher education courses at our universities. We need to know that we are going to get those academic outcomes. This won't be an easy process. There is no silver bullet that will solve all the problems in our classrooms. But isn't it the definition of insanity to just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Something has to give.

I will finish with this. We must remember that the greatest cruelty that we could show to our children is to rob them of their futures by doing nothing and allowing this problem to escalate by reducing learning time in class and ultimately leaving them illiterate and innumerate.