Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:38:11 to 1:43:43
Debate on why PISA results have declined despite increased funding, focusing on the shift toward explicit instruction, phonics, and evidence-based teaching methods in new school agreements.
Topics: Education, Government spending
Speakers: Mr. Tony Cook, Ms. Meg Brighton, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Unknown Speaker
past agreements
>> money doesn't seem to be the issue is my point.
>> Um, past agreements, and I'll have to confess, I was part of every agreement that's been established since 2012. So, you could say it's my fault, maybe. Let's not go there, shall we? Um, but past agreements weren't ex >> Since Thank you. Actually, 2010, but let's not go. Um uh past agreements have provided funding but the requirements that were placed on though on states and territories in relation to explicit reforms to address literacy and numeracy performance were perhaps not as explicit as the new better fair schools agreement. Um you would have heard Mr. Clare talk about this very explicit and about requiring states and territories to implement things like phonics tests, numeracy tests, small groupoup work. They are now required in the agreements and they're required as a result of the funding the Comwalth provided and the government will actually report annually to parliament for the first time ever around progress in relation to that. You'll be aware Minister Clare did a report to Parliament earlier this year. The report next year will be even more explicit about what we're seeing about data to hold states and territories to account including the non-government sector, dare I say, uh in relation to the funding that they've received. And so to some degree we've learned that uh we need to be much more explicit around what we're requiring from uh and we have seen and a number of states have seen as a result of that for example in their phonics assessment they are improving in relation to what literacy and numeracy particularly literacy is happening in their schools in the early years every state I think other than WA is trying a numeracy check this year this year or next year this year um and so they're the sort of things that we have to be much more explicit on and I think we are
now doing that So is the issue then around the pedagogy and the the um and and possibly the the curriculum rather than the amount of funding.
>> Um I'm not so much I think absolutely about pedagogy and again we've had this conversation about you know the reading wars are over. There was a contested debate rightly or wrongly about whole language versus flex. The evidence is absolutely and ERO's here later today. You know the establishment of the of Arrow by ministers as part of previous agreements was to have the evidence-based about what actually works. >> We are now implementing that which is what Baser is saying. It talks about evidence-based approaches >> where we no longer accept and again you've heard Mr. CLA talk about this endlessly. We won't accept um pedagogy that's not based on evidence. We are fine-tuning aspects of the curriculum F22 for example in terms of maths uh where we're looking at being explicit around that and ministers are always looking at those things but again it's what teachers are actually doing in the classroom with their teaching and learning practice and being much more explicit around those things which is so important
>> and are all the states on board with this?
>> Yes, they've all signed up to the
The other interesting thing I noticed was the drop off in performance in relation to higher socioeconomic cortile. >> Have you got any indication as to what that would be?
>> Well, I think Mr. Brighton's on the international pizza board. Uh so I'll refer to my expert at the table. Yeah, Miss
>> Brighton. Thank you. Um yes, certainly that was an area that drew our attention as well. Senator uh we don't have at this stage a clearer explanation around the why but if we do factor in funding is important but the reforms are important what we've seen from
>> sounds like from the evidence that's the most important thing
>> the two the reforms are absolutely critical but you need to have the funding in order to deliver the reforms what we have seen and what we have learned from some of the work the UK has done is the importance of having the um implementation with fidelity and sustained effort. So the UK, well particularly England I should say rather than the UK generally. Um the UK phonics work has been sustained. The UK work in maths has been incredibly sustained and they have wrapped around not only looked about how maths is taught but wrapped around teachers with their professional learning and that has brought around um sustained improvement in maths and not only in the lower socioeconomic and lower performing students but also in the top tier students. So it gives us
>> that's in the UK. Is that correct?
>> That's in England. Yes. >> So that gives us some pointers of areas of focus and I think that we're certainly heading in that same direction of travel. As Secretary Cook said, we're doing that um finessing and finetuning of the math curriculum at the moment and that will go to education ministers on Monday for their consideration. So all of these work, all of these elements together, we do need to st sustain them over a number of years to make sure that we deeply embed them and that so we can get the sort of results that our
>> It's good. Uh it leads me to my next question in so when the minister stood up in parliament to answer questions about the PISA results, he he referenced the United Kingdom and Singapore as well. Um he he also spoke about a digital detox plan for Australian schools and an F to6 curriculum overhaul in mathematics. When did the department first start working on the digital detox program and the curriculum overhaul