Australia, like most countries, is concerned about literacy, language and numeracy (LLN). In Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, students throughout Australia take LLN tests (NAPLAN - National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy). Over the past 2 years I have noticed a significant downturn in student LLN. As the majority of students are native-speaking Australian-born, this is of grave concern. Last year Western Australia introduced an Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA) for Year 10s. If students do not pass this test, they will not be able to graduate from high school in Year 12.
The link for more information is:
http://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/Senior_Secondary/OLNA
Interesting! Do you know of PISA? PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an OECD project which aims to examine the degree to which each country's education system helps to fifteen year-old students, who will soon have completed compulsory schooling, are prepared to meet the future. Through various samples examined students' abilities in four core knowledge areas: mathematics, science and reading comprehension. The study is conducted every three years. For the first time performs Swedish pupils below the OECD average. Australia participates in PISA?
ReplyDeleteYes, the statistics from 2010 show Australia is unique among participating countries in that students from an immigrant background now outperform students without an immigrant background. The recent problem-solving one shows Australia doing quite well, but overall standards are falling.
ReplyDeleteSweden's position is a surprise - Scandinavian countries have always seemed to set the standard for literacy.
Interesting to watch the information link about OLNA, and the way WA is dealing with low literacy and numeracy capacities. Having only run for about a year, I wonder if there are any positive effects shown yet?
ReplyDeleteAlso, is it only WA that has this sort of assessments?
It is quite interesting to read that the students with immigrant background outperform... Here in Sweden it is most often the other way around. Even though I believe a huge problem here is that the teachers teaching the younger children does not have good knowledge about spelling and grammar. It is quite a disaster I fear. My sons teacher for an example...she has great flaws in basic grammar and spelling...and my son is now in 3rd grade.... He has parents who knows how to spell...but what happens to immigrant children?
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