UK education better than Australia?

[Anne B]

I don't want to open up a can of worms with this, but thought this article interesting. Apparently the UK's education system is ranked sixth best in the developed world, according to a global league table published by education firm Pearson.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20498356

 

Australia comes 13th. It's nice to see something positive for the UK.

 

In my experience (with my children) I found the standard of education much better at their school in England than here in Adelaide - which doesn't make me feel great as a Mum, as I feel guilty about taking them away from such a good (state) school.

 

However, to make us feel better, Australia is ranked 2nd most lucky country to be born in (UK 27th), based on factors such as geography, demography, social and cultural characteristics, GDP per head, life expectancy at birth, quality of family life, political freedom, job security, climate, personal security, community life, governance and gender equality.

http://www.wealthbriefing.com/html/article.php?title=US_No_Longer_Seen_As_Luckiest_Country_To_Be_Born_In_-_EIU_&id=51097

 

Switzerland comes 1st, but the article reminds us that in the film `The Third Man', Orson Welles’ character, the rogue Harry Lime, famously says that Italy for 30 years had war, terror and murder under the Borgias but in that time produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance; Switzerland had 500 years of peace and democracy—and produced the cuckoo clock.

 

Can the same criticism be aimed at Australia?

Edited November 27, 2012 by Anne B

[jillyg65]

I haven't arrived yet, but this is the second time I've heard of someone that was a little disappointed with OZ education compared with UK.

 

Does anyone else have any opinions // thoughts?

 

Thanks

[Pommyspark]

I haven't arrived yet, but this is the second time I've heard of someone that was a little disappointed with OZ education compared with UK.

 

Does anyone else have any opinions // thoughts?

 

Thanks

Yep our kids go to apparently one of the best schools in central adelaide and both of them and ourselves agree they can't cut the mustard here, its to laid back teach yourself attitude means the kids dont get the pressure they need to perform, but having said that its the standard that suffers not the outcome, as they tend to get the grades they need.

[Diane]

Yep our kids go to apparently one of the best schools in central adelaide and both of them and ourselves agree they can't cut the mustard here, its to laid back teach yourself attitude means the kids dont get the pressure they need to perform, but having said that its the standard that suffers not the outcome, as they tend to get the grades they need.

 

 

That all changes in Year 12 I can guarantee - especially if the school is any good. As the parent of a child that has just completed Year 12 I can assure you it's full on pressure once they get there! Perhaps we were lucky with our kids' schools - both here and in the UK - but I have certainly no worries about standards here being any lower. As usual though, a lot depends on the teachers they have. We did end up getting a maths tutor for our daughter towards the end- but he was an ex Adelaide teacher and absolutely brilliant - she just didn't click with the teacher she had at school in that subject.

[coolerking]

Hi Anne B,

there are other other research organisations that rank Australia higher in Maths, Sciences and Reading etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

Admittedly, the latest results are from 2009.

 

My brother lives in Switzerland and the education seems excellent. Mind you, the cost of living is quite expensive!

 

Cooler

[scott&kerry]

I'm hoping it is more laid back teaching in oz! Think it's far too much pressure on such a young age here in the uk! All the homework ! It's too much! They need to have more fun with teaching and not so boaring for the children! And yes time to get firmer and more full on from senior schooling ,don't get me wrong I want them to learn and do really well .

kerry

[jim and adel]

I haven't arrived yet, but this is the second time I've heard of someone that was a little disappointed with OZ education compared with UK.

 

 

Plenty of opinions on this one, on this site and many other discussion boards. Some are pleased with the education here in Aus but many feel it's a bit lacking.

 

Jim

[Rachiegarlo]

End result : Australian kids become doctors, scientists, nurses, lawyers, researchers, entrepreneurs, designers, bin men, road workers, checkout operators, etc just as much as their counterparts overseas. Jumping into the system having started in another system, there will be differences. The Australian education system follows its own path, with its own testing and for its own needs. There are good and not so good schools, there are involved and not so involved parents. For those that like evidence here is a list of what Australia and therefore its education system has given to the world......

 

Black Box Flight recorder ,Combine harvester, Variable ratio rack and pinion steering, Blast glass

Bionic ear ( cochlear implants), Agricultural dynamic lifter, 2 stroke lawn mowers, Pre-paid postage

Electric drill, Box kite( precursor to the wright bros flights) Kiwi shoe polish, xerox photocopying

Commercial refrigeration, Differential gears, Notepads, Zip instant water boilers

Latex gloves, Inflatable aircraft escape slides, Garage roller door ,The secret ballot voting system

 

Electronic pacemaker, foundations of physiotherapy, Penicillin ,First frozen embryo IVF baby

Aspirin in tablet form, Orthodontic systems using light materials ,Humidicrib, Microsurgery equipment

Discovery of bacterial cause of stomach ulcers, Spray on skin for burns victims, Cervical cancer vaccine

Internet wifi technology, First feature length film, Freestyle stroke, Race cam

 

Speedo swimwear, teleprinters, gene shears, dual flush toilets, Stump jump plough

 

Permaculture, Lonely Planet Publications before it was sold off. .............. etc etc etc etc.

 

 

Of course other countries have produced as many inventions , techniques etc, some of the best inventions will come from problem solving in 3rd world nations where people need to think outside the box of what is "education" .

 

So basically me general thoughts are...... most of you at this point in time assume you will be moving to Australia for good or if still worried about the quality of education here, have only been here a year or two. Therefore your children will end up being partially or fully educated here. Your children if interested, able , inclined will have access to an education system that will allow them to be able to cope with post school training, be it on the job, university or whatever. This will lead to further developments if interested. Put it this way Australians have a chance to go places.....eg Australian managers are well sought after by multinational companies because of their can do attitude and skills. Same with nurses, teachers , doctors....

 

Anyways you get the picture.

And my final thought is...... league tables capture only a glimmer of the whole picture of education...... that which is measurable by quantative research....

Edited November 27, 2012 by Rachiegarlo

[Diane]

Brilliant post Rach, just "liking" it doesn't seem enough so LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE!

[Anne B]

It would be interesting to know how many of the successful achievers in Australia went to private school, as opposed to state school. The old boy network is alive and kicking in Adelaide, based on what school you went to. It's not much different to the UK in that respect. Also how many had to go to Europe/UK/USA to achieve their success.

[jim and adel]

For those that like evidence here is a list of what Australia and therefore its education system has given to the world......

 

A tenuous link at best exists between inventions, discoveries and education, and many of the items listed are not about what the Australian education system has given to the world, even indirectly. Without getting into a ***-for-tat argument, a few examples:

 

- penicillin was discovered (and given its name) by Alexander Fleming ten years before Florey started working with it. Florey was certainly an Australian - from Adelaide no less - but he got his degree and masters from Oxford (which is where he was employed when he worked on penicillin as a treatment) and his PhD from Cambridge. His research was funded jointly by the UK and the USA, so it's a bit rich to suggest that Australian education gave penicillin it to the world;

 

- spray on skin for burn victims was developed by Fiona Wood, a doctor who works in Perth. She comes from Yorkshire and was educated in Pontefract and at St Thomas' Hospital in London, before moving over here after she married an Aus surgeon;

 

- the first example of pre-paid postage is the postage stamp (before that, the receiver had to pay to receive mail), introduced in the UK in 1840 and the reason why the UK is the only country in the world that doesn't put its name on its stamps;

 

- secret ballot voting was used in ancient Greece and Rome and was introduced in France after 1795 when its constitution ordered that all elections would be conducted that way. It's true that this system is sometimes called 'the Australian ballot' because it was one of the Chartist ideas that the UK parliament wouldn't adopt in the 1840s but did allow for its introduction in Australia in the 1850s.

 

I'm not having a dig at Aus education - some think it's great, others don't - but such a list as the one above does little to support either point of view. Oh, and don't get me started on differential gears ...

 

Jim

[ian mc]

I like when top gear looked at AUS to find what they had invented and all they could find that they invented was the hills hoist.

[Rachiegarlo]

Nsw had the prepaid postage system in 1836. Environment plays a great part in people's lives Jim. Most of these people mentioned in my previous post have either received initial education/ further education or an environment conducive to furthering their research/work. Education is not neccessarily just the institution type either. Life education can enable people to invent/ produce or whatever. It is a fact that many of the above left to go elsewhere to access funding work or whatever. Anyway my original post was just to show that Australians too have access to education, it's different and it works. The single most important factor in educating a child is actually their home environment. Having an influential person supporting a child to use the available education is just as important as curriculum. African kids who learn to write in the dirt can also attain great heights . As I said your child who enters the Aus ed system has just as much chance as anyone elsewhere to reach their potential.

[ian mc]

I think you will find if you look up most of these so called Australian Inventions that most of them were invented by someone else or someone that lived in Austrilia and just added a small part to it and called it there own. Most of these things like the box kite the chinese were flying before Austrilia was even discovered.

 

End result : Australian kids become doctors, scientists, nurses, lawyers, researchers, entrepreneurs, designers, bin men, road workers, checkout operators, etc just as much as their counterparts overseas. Jumping into the system having started in another system, there will be differences. The Australian education system follows its own path, with its own testing and for its own needs. There are good and not so good schools, there are involved and not so involved parents. For those that like evidence here is a list of what Australia and therefore its education system has given to the world......

 

Black Box Flight recorder ,Combine harvester, Variable ratio rack and pinion steering, Blast glass

Bionic ear ( cochlear implants), Agricultural dynamic lifter, 2 stroke lawn mowers, Pre-paid postage

Electric drill, Box kite( precursor to the wright bros flights) Kiwi shoe polish, xerox photocopying

Commercial refrigeration, Differential gears, Notepads, Zip instant water boilers

Latex gloves, Inflatable aircraft escape slides, Garage roller door ,The secret ballot voting system

 

Electronic pacemaker, foundations of physiotherapy, Penicillin ,First frozen embryo IVF baby

Aspirin in tablet form, Orthodontic systems using light materials ,Humidicrib, Microsurgery equipment

Discovery of bacterial cause of stomach ulcers, Spray on skin for burns victims, Cervical cancer vaccine

Internet wifi technology, First feature length film, Freestyle stroke, Race cam

 

Speedo swimwear, teleprinters, gene shears, dual flush toilets, Stump jump plough

 

Permaculture, Lonely Planet Publications before it was sold off. .............. etc etc etc etc.

 

 

Of course other countries have produced as many inventions , techniques etc, some of the best inventions will come from problem solving in 3rd world nations where people need to think outside the box of what is "education" .

 

So basically me general thoughts are...... most of you at this point in time assume you will be moving to Australia for good or if still worried about the quality of education here, have only been here a year or two. Therefore your children will end up being partially or fully educated here. Your children if interested, able , inclined will have access to an education system that will allow them to be able to cope with post school training, be it on the job, university or whatever. This will lead to further developments if interested. Put it this way Australians have a chance to go places.....eg Australian managers are well sought after by multinational companies because of their can do attitude and skills. Same with nurses, teachers , doctors....

 

Anyways you get the picture.

And my final thought is...... league tables capture only a glimmer of the whole picture of education...... that which is measurable by quantative research....

[Rachiegarlo]

:D How quickly some people become assimilated in the Tall Poppy Syndrome is always amusing :D. A lot of things have been thought of or examined by earlier civilisations or people but it takes someone to pick up the idea and run with it, improving it or finding better ways to use things, do things etc. Fleming did nothing with his discovery , Florey ran with it and developed it. The chinese flew box kites, but they didn't alter the design slightly and strap four of them together to build a flying machine. All I was actually trying to say was that education results are not just about quantitative research. I think most people who move here are just worried about whether their kids will receive an education which will give them a future. My kids have been totally educated within the Aus system and they have futures if they choose to use the education they have received, including that education which can not be tested but has given them their view of their place in the world. So you can get stuck in the pedantic narrow view or look beyond and find a bigger picture. Some of you may not agree, but I for one know that the ability of humans to learn is present in everyone and how much of this is used is determined by environment.....not so long ago girls denied an equal education were thought to be less able than their male counterparts.

[snifter]

I've read that news story and just thought it was one report, so am not holding much in it. More so when you then read news reports like this one the same day

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20498359

[Anne B]

I've read that news story and just thought it was one report, so am not holding much in it. More so when you then read news reports like this one the same day

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20498359

 

At least there is such a thing as Ofsted (mentioned in the article) in the UK - I'm not aware of any similar type of regulatory body here (if anyone can point me in the right direction then please let me know). The school my kids went to in the UK was rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted. The school they go to here - who knows? I know there are the naplan results but I am always a bit wary of league tables as they need to be interpreted in a wider context. How do you know which Australian schools are good and which are failing?

[jim and adel]

Nsw had the prepaid postage system in 1836. Environment plays a great part in people's lives Jim. Most of these people mentioned in my previous post have either received initial education/ further education or an environment conducive to furthering their research/work. Education is not neccessarily just the institution type either. Life education can enable people to invent/ produce or whatever. It is a fact that many of the above left to go elsewhere to access funding work or whatever. Anyway my original post was just to show that Australians too have access to education, it's different and it works. The single most important factor in educating a child is actually their home environment. Having an influential person supporting a child to use the available education is just as important as curriculum. African kids who learn to write in the dirt can also attain great heights . As I said your child who enters the Aus ed system has just as much chance as anyone elsewhere to reach their potential.

 

I don't disagree with you about any of this (apart from the postage - I can give examples of pre-paid happening from 1635 in the UK, but that would be grandstanding ), but it's somewhat different to the point you were making with the list and it was that I commented on. Some of the bits you mention in a later response I do disagree with; it's got nothing to do with tall poppy syndrome but simply accuracy - many of the items on your list aren't Australian inventions/discoveries and therefore it's fair to point that out. Saying Fleming 'did nothing with his discovery' shows a lack of knowledge about the man (which is fine - many people don't know much about him, but I don't hear them commenting on his contribution to medicine). As for excusing putting items on the list that weren't discovered/invented by Australians or in Australia simply because they were furthered, improved or used in better ways, well that's a rather different thing to saying that Australians and its education gave these things to the world, and if that's the test, many countries could claim to have invented just about everything. It also begs the question why would you include the basis of xerox copying on there? It took an American some 40 years later to 'run with' that idea.

 

Anyway, the OP was asking a fair question about the current education system and this has gone somewhat off topic - I suspect that most of us are pretty much already aware of the importance of parents in education and how even underprivileged kids can reach their potential - so that's it from me on this thread. Happy inventing, all (or 'improving' others' inventions!)

 

Jim

[NicF]

At least there is such a thing as Ofsted (mentioned in the article) in the UK - I'm not aware of any similar type of regulatory body here (if anyone can point me in the right direction then please let me know). The school my kids went to in the UK was rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted. The school they go to here - who knows? I know there are the naplan results but I am always a bit wary of league tables as they need to be interpreted in a wider context. How do you know which Australian schools are good and which are failing?

 

As far as I'm aware as well there is nothing along the lines of Ofsted here. There is nothing along the lines of league tables either. Although the Naplan results for each school are published they are not pulished along side each other so if you want to compare schools you have to go find the results for one, make a note, then go and find the results for the other. My OH did a lot of this with the Naplan results for a selection of schools before we moved over, making his own little league table, but then he did used to work for Edxcel and was involved in the IT for the SATs tests in the UK.

[Guest wijaya]

have a look at this

 

http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-the-worlds-secondbest-place-to-be-born-study-20121128-2adk0.html

Australia the world's second-best place to be born: study

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-the-worlds-secondbest-place-to-be-born-study-20121128-2adk0.html#ixzz2DW4vn3Pl

[Misplaced]

Back in the 70's I was educated in Australia for my Primary learning and was amazed at certain things that kids in the UK were behind on such as writing, reading and times tables.

 

I must admit that having put my two through their primary education in the UK I feel it is substandard to what I received at Christies Beach Primary School back in the 70's. Having said that I do think kids develop at their own pace and they understand things at different times - this has nothing to do with where they are educated but just them.

 

Personally, I would rather all kids came out with at least an average education but more importantly a well rounded individual who has achieved their best, has manners and tolerant of all kinds of people. Qualifications are not the be all and end all to education and parents have a massive role to play in a childs education in everything.

[Anne B]

Another international study on education standards and Australia is consistently lower than England in all categories.

 

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/12/we-are-illiterate/

[jim and adel]

Another international study on education standards and Australia is consistently lower than England in all categories.

 

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/12/we-are-illiterate/

 

Yes, but are you allowed to point such out on here

 

Jim

[Rachiegarlo]

of course you are Jim , nothing like a healthy debate and people also airing their personal experiences of education here.

[Anne B]

Another international study on education standards and Australia is consistently lower than England in all categories.

 

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/12/we-are-illiterate/

 

I should say "consistently lower than England, Ireland and Northern Ireland" (Scotland and Wales are not included). Broken down by state, the ACT comes top in Australia and performs quite well. The author of the article referenced says "The lesson? Remodel Australian education on the ACT approach. Liberal curriculum, massive funding, new facilities, stable ultra-middle class society."