Australia is well known as one of the best countries in the
world for research, but its science, technology, engineering and mathematics performance
is generally lagging, according to Ian Chubb in his new report.
Mathematical literacy in students, in particular, is
slipping relative to the world, raising fears of a “growing cohort of students
who might struggle to participate fully in a range of life situations and jobs
in a modern economy”, the report said.
Australians like to believe they are punching well above
their weight when it comes to research performance, but if you compare
Australia to other free market economies this isn't necessarily the case.
The report pulled
together published information on a range of measures of stem performance
including citation rates, research funding, international collaboration and
maths and science literacy. The results were compared with the United States,
Canada, New Zealand, 11 countries in Europe and another 10 in the Asia-Pacific.
As you can see from the chart above Australia comes in at an
average position ranking at 14th. There are lots of areas Australia
does do well in though, with four fields in particular. These are Earth
sciences, physical sciences, mathematical sciences and biomedical and clinical
health sciences.
The concluding remarks in the paper about Australia’s STEM
performance state “This overall performance means we have no room for complacency.
Nor can we let STEM drift. We must distribute resources carefully and
strategically, just like most other countries”
The report looked at the number of teachers with a
maths-specific qualification for year 8 students across a number of countries. Australia
had the second lowest proportion of teachers with a maths-specific qualification.
This could help to explain the decline in Australian student’s mathematical
ability, although the repost does point out that countries such as Sweden which
has a much higher proportion of teachers with maths-specific qualifications is
also declining in mathematical ability.
Chubb said science and maths teachers needed “a real
discipline base” alongside their pedagogical training. “Even if they do a
teaching degree it’s still got to have real science and maths in it” he said.
Over all the report states that their needs to be a
rethinking and prioritisation of resources to raise STEM standards. The placement
of specialist maths and science teachers in every primary school was seen as
crucial.
If you would like to see the report in full just click on
the link below.
No comments:
Post a Comment