We're good in education, but getting better won't be easy Australia has a number of schools that perform as well as the best schools in the world. WHEN Julia Gillard was education minister, she promised that Australian students would perform among the top five countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment test by 2025. The Victorian education minister, Martin Dixon, also wants to lift standards so the state's students are at the top of the table in international tests. Reality check. Based on the latest PISA results, in which Australia is ranked 19th in mathematics, 12th in reading and 15th in science, it's obvious that our results, while above the OECD average and better than most other countries, prove how difficult the task will be. In Victoria, where our students in mathematics and science are outperformed by the ACT, NSW, WA and Queensland, it's also the case that political rhetoric will be hard to fulfil. The task is made more difficult by the fact, compared with the top countries, our results have gone backwards since the last test and we have fewer students among the best performers. In mathematics only 14.8 per cent of our students perform at levels 5 and 6, while the figure for Shanghai is 55.4 per cent, Singapore is 40 per cent, Hong Kong 33.7 per cent, Taipei 37.2 per cent and Korea 30.9 per cent. What's to be done? The first thing to realise is that Australia has a number of schools that perform as well as the best schools in the world. Schools in WA and the ACT match the top 10 countries in relation to science and the ACT is ranked seventh in reading out of the 65 countries and systems tested. And many of our Catholic, independent and selective state schools achieve excellent results. The second thing to do is to analyse the performance of more successful education systems and identify the likely reasons why students in those schools do better than Australian students. While the solutions are never simple or straightforward and there might be some characteristics that are impossible to adopt, there are lessons that can be learned. One of the characteristics common to high-performing systems is school autonomy. That explains why Christopher Pyne, the federal education minister, is critical of the previous Rudd government's Gonski-inspired school funding model because it adopts a Canberra-centric, command and control approach. Micromanaging teachers and schools, wrapping them in red tape, is wasteful and drains teachers of the energy and time needed to be effective in the classroom. Stronger education systems like Singapore and Hong Kong also make sure teachers are respected, well-resourced and have the time to mentor and support one another. The focus is on helping teachers reflect on what happens in the classroom and to devise strategies to be more effective. But in Victoria, for example, teachers must go through complicated, bureaucratic procedures and gather evidence to prove they should be allowed to continue teaching. Teachers, especially in primary schools, must also spend weeks writing, editing and proof reading extensive, lengthy student reports that often fail to give parents a realistic and credible idea whether their children are passing or failing. In addition to giving schools greater autonomy and freeing teachers to get on with the job, it's important to analyse the curriculum and what happens in class in stronger education systems and to see how we compare. Many of the Asian countries have more academically focused and rigorous mathematics and science curriculum syllabuses and frameworks compared with Australia. The style of teaching is also more traditional - teachers are respected, students know they must work hard and there is less noise and disruption. That is unlike Australia, where teachers are made to adopt a constructivist approach to learning, one where teachers are described as guides by the side, students direct their own learning, classes are noisy and the focus is the process of learning instead of essential content. Rote learning and memorisation are now unfashionable, so many students cannot do mental arithmetic, recite times tables or important poems, rhymes or ballads. Dr Kevin Donnelly is Director of Melbourne-based Education Standards Institute