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The Forum > Article Comments > Declining standards should not be ignored > Comments

Declining standards should not be ignored : Comments

By Peter Abelson, published 2/12/2005

Peter Abelson argues falling pass rates paint a dismal picture of student competence.

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Unfortunately declining academic standards have been the norm since education bureaucracies started experimenting with Outcomes Based approaches to education in schools. In WA the drift away from a strict knowledge based approach commenced in the 1970's and slowly developed until Outcomes Based Education (OBE) became commonplace in the early 1990's and formally adopted in Legislation in 1997.

Because OBE renames objectives as "outcomes" and in doing so adds social and behavioural characteristics to the traditional academic emphasis, it is possible to get a high "outcome score" without having achieved anything much in the way of academic knowledge and performance. By removing a syllabus and permitting teachers themselves to design what knowledge, skill and understandings they use as the basis of their curriculum OBE basically guarantees that academic standards will decline over time.

What Peter Abelson has reported is simply what could have been prepicted had we fully understood what OBE was at the time it was introduced in Australia. In WA we now have students in High School who have had all of their educational experience through OBE. And now the Government is committed to the introduction of OBE in years 11 & 12.

Until parents fully appreciate the harm OBE is causing and push for a return to a syllabus knowledge based approach to education, we will continue to see a decline in stands in our schools and universities.
Posted by Sniggid, Friday, 2 December 2005 11:52:09 AM
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Peter, your comments echo those from university teaching friends over several years, as to the lack of commitment and effort among many students and a failure to grasp what was required of them. In some cases students who had entered university through "equity" programs for the disadvantaged were just unable to cope, their experience set them back rather than helping them.

Conversely, my children have all done/are doing well at leading unis (Melbourne and Queensland), as are their peer groups. The problem seems to be the emphasis on expansion of student numbers to a point where many are not able to benefit from a university education. It's not surprising that enrolments have begun to fall, particularly in second tier universities, as marginal students realise that they will not benefit from tertiary education.

The ALP's Craig Emerson promotes further expansion of tertiary student numbers as a prerequisite for growth in an innovative "knowledge-based" economy. That's not correct, it's the top students/researchers/engineers etc who drive innovation, extending numbers of middle-rankers will just increase the number of people not making use of their formal education.
Posted by Faustino, Friday, 2 December 2005 3:59:58 PM
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People want to study so they can earn a decent wage, people deserve a decent wage. You and your 'standards' can sod off.
Posted by strayan, Friday, 2 December 2005 4:57:57 PM
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Faustino, Have you considered the standard of teaching at McQuarie may be the problem and Peter may be part of that, if your children are doing well in other uni's perhaps it is a standards problem with teaching staff, or shouldn't we consider that option?
Posted by SHONGA, Friday, 2 December 2005 5:29:10 PM
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Shonga, I've heard similar tales from staff at UQ, QUT & Griffith - I think it's widespread. Strayan, I think that many people will find/have found that they reach a point of diminshing returns, that they'd be better off financially both in the short term and over their working life without four years tertiary study. It's not just in Australia, in a number of countries it's been found that when a small proportion of the population went to university, they gained a significant financial advantage. As the proportion expands, the rewards for a degree fall, employers learn the value of different degrees from different universities, unless you're really interested and likely to do well, it may not be worthwhile. How much benefit are the repeatedly-failing students mentioned by Philip getting from being at uni?
Posted by Faustino, Friday, 2 December 2005 8:07:08 PM
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Shonga / Faustino,

I do agree that these are worrying trends. They are very widespread, and I personlly feel that these statistics demonstrate the underlying cause of the declining standards in the professions. Students are being assessed at a lower overall rate than they used to be assessed, because universities wish to retain and attract higher numbers of students. Students that fail their first year DO NOT return, therefore failure costs the Universities.

perhaps this is the result of continued financial pressure on Universities to be self-funding?

The other major cause of failure would obviously be connected to the declining standards of literacy and numeracy in our primary and secondary education system. People have been able to advance to tertiary education, despite being borderline illiterate / innumerate, because schools are assessed upon pass rates. These students could not be expected to competently read, understand and utilise the advanced concepts they are learning if they struggle to maintain secondary school levels of competence.

However, until the business orientated Universities and Schools are assessed upon something other than their ability to churn out huge numbers of purportedly qualified graduates, the decline will not be arrested. Universities and Schools should be assessed (KPI) oly upon the quality of the education they provide, not the quanitity of people they supposedly educate.
Posted by Aaron, Saturday, 3 December 2005 4:24:39 PM
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