By Darin Ritchie
The latest VECCI poll shows that, overwhelmingly, employers believe that school leavers have poor literacy skills, while a majority believe that numeracy skills are poor as well. Of further concern is that one in five do not believe the Australian Government’s National Curriculum will make any difference.
These figures correspond to an Australian Bureau of Statistics Report in 2006 which found that 7 million Australians aged 15 to 74 (46%) had literacy skills below the “minimum required for individuals to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work in the emerging knowledge-based economy”.
The Group of Eight Universities last week stated that the decline in mathematics in schools meant that these skills were now having to be taught in universities, and “the state of the mathematical sciences and related quantitative disciplines in Australia has deteriorated to a dangerous level, and continues to deteriorate.”
Literacy and numeracy skills are crucial for all school leavers, regardless of whether they continue on into further education and training, or choose to join the workforce. Without these fundamental skills, young people are locked out of social and economic security and opportunity. For industry, literacy and numeracy are vital to satisfy ever-increasing skill demands to remain competitive and improve productivity.
Three quarters (76%) of those responding to the VECCI poll rated the literacy skills of school leavers employed by their business as poor, 18% rated it as acceptable, and only 6% rated it as good or excellent.
Just over half (54%) of respondents rated the numeracy skills of school leavers employed by their business as poor. While a third (34%) rated it as acceptable, and just 12% rated it as good or excellent.
Half of respondents (50%) believe the proposed national curriculum won’t lead to improved student performance in literacy and numeracy, while only one in five (22%) believe it will improve performance.
It is clear that employers responding to this poll believe that school leavers that have joined the workforce have inadequate literacy and numeracy skills, and nearly 80% doubt that a national curriculum will address this issue.
The Australian Government will have to clearly demonstrate how its proposed National Curriculum will make a difference in the classroom and turn around the poor performance of today’s school leavers. However, like most things, a change in curriculum has to be matched with teacher retraining and professional development, reliable and accurate testing, and working with parents, school communities and employers.
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To put these stat’s in context, those of us who have children with learning difficulties (commonly known as dyslexia), impact these statistics.
One in five children – that’s 20% (yes, I known my maths) – suffer from a learning difficulty. The problem for these kids is that they cannot work in the traditional classroom of 25 to 30 kids, often needing smaller, quieter groups, but our school system doesn’t cater for these frustrated children (and their frustrated parents).
Recently a parent from our local primary school asked the Principal whether there was some program that could assist their “learning disabled” child or suggest a tutor. The resounding response was “no”. There was no further dialogue or suggestion, so even when parents are willing to do more to support their child, they are faced with road blocks from the educational institutions.
Universities need to educate their teachers more broadly, so that they have the teachers able to reach those 20% of students – that will certainly help reduce the bleak numeracy and literacy stat’s. Parents just want some sensible interventions.
I recently read a fascinating book called “the brain that changes itself” which clarified that the brain’s neural pathways that assist with reading, literacy, and cognition can be strengthened using repetition. Perhaps the science of the brain should be added to the Unversity Curriculum.
I agree with the stats re numeracy and literacy of school leavers, but I have a problem understanding the basis of employers saying the proposed new curriculum will make no difference – how was this studied and what was their knowledge base. Or as one of our executives might say, there knowledge base. It’s not just school leavers believe me, senior employers are also left wanting.
This is a major problem in our schools and I really don’t know how to combat it. My daughter is in Yr 6 at an independent school and is only now being “tested” on her times tables, which fortunately I have been teaching her. Perhaps I am old-fashioned but the basics simply are not being taught at primary level. When my daughter writes and makes spelling and grammatical errors, the teachers do not correct her. They tell parents that they want the child’s thoughts to “flow” and not be complicated by spelling corrections etc. The real concern is that a new generation of teachers are now entering the system…the era that cannot spell or do simple calculations without a calculator, so it is only going to get worse ie. the blind leading the blind.
The other issue is how the schools report the child’s progress…unfortunately, the politically correct fools that have devloped this system seem to be unwilling to (potentially) lower a child’s self-esteem by being told they are coming last in the class so, virtually every child gets told that they are “at standard” in a particular aspect of maths/literacy. This neither encourages the child at the top of the group to remain there nor the child at the bottom to aspire to be better. What it is successful in doing is developing a whole load of kids with very healthy self-esteem but no brains and no idea of whether they have to improve their maths/english or whether they are actually good at those subjects.
Who made education so complicated ???????