Professor Geoff Masters, CEO at Australian Council for
Educational Research, wrote an article a few years ago citing one of the
biggest challenges we face in school education is to identify and develop the
knowledge, skills and attributes required for life and work in the 21st
Century. There are several reasons for questioning how well the current school
curriculum is equipping students for life beyond school.
First, there has been a long-term decline in the ability of Australian 15-year-olds to apply what they are learning to everyday problems. This decline is evident in performances in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Over the first twelve years, Australian students completed their compulsory study of mathematics and science with declining levels of ‘literacy' – that is, declining abilities to apply fundamental concepts and principles ...
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