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Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert . Photo : NCA Newswire / Andrew Henshaw
‘ Designed to be provocative ’
Stuart Robert defends controversial ‘ dud teachers ’ remarks .
NCA NewsWire
Education Minister Stuart Robert has defended blaming “ dud ” public school teachers for dragging down academic results , saying his comments were “ designed to be provocative ”.
Mr Robert made the initial remarks in a speech at a national independent schools conference in March , in which he said Australia ’ s international benchmark test results would improve if this “ brutal reality ” was confronted .
He praised independent schools for employing quality teachers but suggested this sent the “ bottom 10 per cent of teachers dragging the chain ” into the government system , where they wouldn ’ t be fired despite not being “ up to the right standard ”.
Mr Robert has stood by his comments after a storm of controversy that included the Australian Education Union savaging him for what they interpreted as a “ deplorable ” attack on public school teachers .
“ My comments were designed to be provocative to start a conversation about where we need to go ,” Mr Robert told 6PR radio .
“ School funding has doubled , but our results have gone backwards . And we have to face that brutal reality : Why ?”
He said Australia needed to confront its declining performance in international tests , referring to the Program for International Student Assessment ( PISA ) test for 15-yearolds living in OECD nations .
The PISA measures a sample of students ’ reading , mathematics , and science literacy skills every three years .
Mr Robert said Australia ’ s PISA results had dropped in the past 20 years , from fourth to 16th in reading , eighth to 17th in science and 11th to 29th in mathematics .
“ This is despite a 42 per cent real increase in funding . Clearly , simply funding education systems does not alone guarantee results ,” he told the forum .
Mr Robert said the Morrison government believed there were two factors behind Australia ’ s plummeting performance .
One of these reasons was that 10 per cent of teaching graduates were failing the basic numeracy and literacy benchmark test , he said .
The Morrison government will seek to bring forward the literacy and numeracy test for initial teacher education students from the final year of university to the very beginning of one ’ s course .
“ Let ’ s have a conversation respectfully about how do we improve teacher quality through initial teacher education ?” Mr Robert said .
Our results have gone backwards . And we have to face that brutal reality : Why ?
The other priority for the government is to reform what Mr Robert has described as a “ very packed ” and “ busy ” school curriculum .
The national curriculum had been under review since June 2020 , and the new version was only recently signed off on by the nation ’ s education ministers .
The draft underwent significant changes at the start of this year , particularly to the humanities and mathematics courses .
The humanities component of the new curriculum was one of the last subject areas to be finalised after more than a year of “ culture wars ” debate over its proposed content .
Mr Robert has taken a similar approach to his predecessor in the education portfolio Alan Tudge , in maintaining that Australian students should be taught to be proud of Western values and history .
“ We should understand our Indigenous heritage and our strong place in the world but understand how our nation was founded ,” Mr Robert said .
“ I don ’ t want to teach children in Year 2 to identify a racist statue , I mean are you kidding me ? This is nuts .” ■
4 | educationreview . com . au