Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia
In recent years Western Australia has experienced fierce controversy over education, focused almost entirely on the introduction of an 'outcomes-based' approach to curriculum and teaching in upper secondary schools. It was a controversy that generated far more heat than light, with very li...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University of Technology
2009
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/18636 |
| _version_ | 1848749801609363456 |
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| author | Millett, Stephan Tapper, Alan |
| author_facet | Millett, Stephan Tapper, Alan |
| author_sort | Millett, Stephan |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | In recent years Western Australia has experienced fierce controversy over education, focused almost entirely on the introduction of an 'outcomes-based' approach to curriculum and teaching in upper secondary schools. It was a controversy that generated far more heat than light, with very little in the way of evidence being presented. Good evidence exists on the academic performance of Western Australian students. We summarise this evidence, and argue that it gives no indication that outcomes-based education is either detrimental or beneficial to student performance. In general, WA students perform well in three kinds of internationally benchmarked testing. The 'educational crisis' fever that was created by the news media and some commentators has no justification. If there is serious cause for concern, it is about falling entry standards amongst recruits to the teaching profession. We present the evidence for this fall and argue that, since good teaching is the best guarantee of continuing current academic standards, there is a need to raise the standard of teaching recruitment. This is especially so for the lowest-performing schools, where the best teachers are most needed. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:26:43Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-18636 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:26:43Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University of Technology |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-186362017-01-30T12:08:57Z Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia Millett, Stephan Tapper, Alan Education teaching schools outcomes-based education Western Australia teachers In recent years Western Australia has experienced fierce controversy over education, focused almost entirely on the introduction of an 'outcomes-based' approach to curriculum and teaching in upper secondary schools. It was a controversy that generated far more heat than light, with very little in the way of evidence being presented. Good evidence exists on the academic performance of Western Australian students. We summarise this evidence, and argue that it gives no indication that outcomes-based education is either detrimental or beneficial to student performance. In general, WA students perform well in three kinds of internationally benchmarked testing. The 'educational crisis' fever that was created by the news media and some commentators has no justification. If there is serious cause for concern, it is about falling entry standards amongst recruits to the teaching profession. We present the evidence for this fall and argue that, since good teaching is the best guarantee of continuing current academic standards, there is a need to raise the standard of teaching recruitment. This is especially so for the lowest-performing schools, where the best teachers are most needed. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/18636 John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University of Technology fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Education teaching schools outcomes-based education Western Australia teachers Millett, Stephan Tapper, Alan Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title | Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title_full | Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title_fullStr | Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title_short | Crisis? Which Crisis? The state of education in Western Australia |
| title_sort | crisis? which crisis? the state of education in western australia |
| topic | Education teaching schools outcomes-based education Western Australia teachers |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/18636 |