Every three years around this time politicians, education leaders and pundits step up to call for fixing their education systems. This has happened for two decades now. Education reforms follow one after another. Still, according to the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa), school systems are not getting any better around the world. Indeed, in many countries, students’ test scores in reading, mathematics…
read moreAmerican journalist and social critic H L Mencken wrote that “for every complex human problem, there is a solution that is neat, simple and wrong”. "Back to basics" or phonics tests are such answers that have been offered to improve Australian schools. Alarm bells were ringing around Australia when the latest PISA results became public on Tuesday. Australia scored its lowest ever results in the global reading, mathematics…
read moreThe biggest issues confronting parents these days all seem to have one common element: smart devices. We know for sure that children today suffer more mental health issues than generations before. We also know that kids now sleep much less than they should, and a lack of sleep affects their wellbeing and learning. Reading and writing skills have been declining in Australia over recent years and students’ learning in other areas…
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