How successful are Australian schools?
Judged by the annual complaints of the Australian Education Union (AEU), the answer is that our school system is failing and nothing will improve until more money is spent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of more effective teaching and learning being dependent on smaller classes and more teachers, the reality is that it is what actually happens in the classroom that decides how well students learn. Curriculum As such, any discussion about strengthening Australia’s school system needs to focus on the curriculum and the question of what is the most effective and successful way to structure “what” and “how” students learn. One only needs to look at the range of educational “fads” that have washed over Australian classrooms since the early 1970s to realise how abysmal we are in this regard. Whereas those countries that perform best in international maths and science tests have an academic and rigorous approach to curriculum, Australian schools have been forced to adopt a s
