Report finds Aussie kids are running amok in classrooms

Bad behaviour at school is a key cause for Aussie students’ poor performance in international education league tables, a new report has found.

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) looked into Australia’s disappointing results in two big global tests for primary and high school students in 2015, and released its findings today.

Australian 15-year-olds ranked equal 10^th in science, 20^th in maths and 12^th in reading in 2015, having slipped in all rankings compared to 2012.

Meanwhile, students in Year 4 and Year 4 showed almost no improvement in their results in science and maths since 1995, with Year 4s ranking 22^nd in maths and 18^th in science, and Year 8s coming in 13^th in maths and 14^th in science.

ACER said it found a “clear relationship between the achievement of Australian students and principals’ reports of school discipline problems.”

About a third of the fifteen-year-olds tested in 2015 who went to “affluent” schools reported that there was noise and disorder in most or all their classes, students didn’t listen to what the teacher said and students found it hard to learn.

The proportion of students that reported the same poor learning environment jumped to about half among those who went to “disadvantaged” schools.

In response, education minister Simon Birmingham has called for “zero tolerance” on bad behaviour on the classroom.

Birmingham told the 2SM breakfast program today that policymakers needed to make sure teachers had enough power to deal with discipline issue.

“And, of course, ultimately parents and families and the school community have to back teachers in areas of discipline, discipline in areas of respect,” he said.

“If we’re to turn around behaviour in attitude, that requires families, parents, the home environment, working hand in glove with teachers and the school community to get that done.”

The minister noted that schools were run by state governments, so the federal government could only offer policy leadership and contribute to some of the issues around funding and teacher training. He said he planned to talk to state education minister, though, about how the issue could be addressed,

2SM host Grant Goldman pointed out that if, as a student, he’d told a teacher to “eff off” he would have been “close to death” just from his father’s discipline, let alone from that handed out by his teachers.

Birmingham agreed, re-emphasising the role parents had to play in ensuring teachers, and other people in positions of authority were respected.

“It can not rest alone on the shoulders of teachers and principals. They have plenty to contend with already,” he said.

Do you think discipline in schools has deteriorated over the years? Is there a lack of respect more generally for people in authority? How do you think the situation can be improved?