OzTennis

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinio...182420881.html

This article rightly suggests that the report card should say 'could do a lot better for some groups and in some areas'. The criteria used by OECD might be questioned but nevertheless some comfort can be drawn from the results.

Let the UK vs Oz arguments begin!

OzTennis

Bordy

Is that because all the good teachers went back to Scotland.

OzTennis

Would have been 3rd without the 'brain drain' mate!

No seriously, I'm sure the Australian system has benefitted greatly from what must be a big net immigration of teachers bringing different ideas, experience and so on from other countries. (I can just hear Mike Stanton saying Australia is 4th because of the high quality of teachers brought in from the UK!)

OzTennis

Just to completely change tack Bordy watch out for the Bulldogs in 2005. John Howard is even on board now as #1 season ticket holder (he must have got some votes out of granting all that money for the re-development of Whitten Oval).

MikeStanton

Teach, you need to clean your ears out.

Stanton says, 'It's an irrelevant survey as UK didn't take part; and when I last looked UK is part of this world - even if some people are on a different planet. Eh OzTennis?'

OzTennis

I wasn't aware that the UK hadn't taken part in the survey. If not, why not, the UK is a member of the OECD? The fact that the UK isn't included in a survey doesn't make it irrelevant either, the newspaper article was about Australia. I don't think I can change the thread title but fair dues I was a bit of a tabloid journalist there, it should read - 4th best in the 41 industrialised OECD countries which took part in the survey.

OzTennis

PortJackson

Didnt take part or were alittle afraid
UK not in survey

OzTennis

Interesting link! I hinted that there had to be a reason why the UK wasn't in the survey (because it is in the OECD and is one of the leading industrialised nations in the world). It transpires that England made the UK results null and void (because Scotland and Northern Ireland provided suitable results and Wales had a different excuse).

It would appear in England's case to be either a question of a little afraid of the results as you suggest or cannot understand/fill in the forms in sufficient numbers which tells us something completely different.

OzTennis

ABCDiamond

I was looking this up and came across the 2001 report and saw the following figures:

Top five for literacy
Finland
Canada
New Zealand
Australia
Ireland


Top five for maths
Japan
Korea
New Zealand
Finland
Australia


Top five for science
Korea
Japan
Finland
United Kingdom
Canada


International high flyers
Finland, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Austria and Sweden. (Above average at every subject)


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1689966.stm
the report also found the UK had one of the widest variations in performance between students from the wealthiest and poorest social class groupings

hevs

OH no! my son wants to be a scientist, what do we do now

Good readings Oz T, thanks