I have 4 children, 19 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. Every decade the literacy levels seem to get worse and of even more importance, teachers aren’t picking up those who can’t read or do basic maths.
For years now I have been using NAPLAN results to show me where the grandchildren in my care, and those close to me, are failing and 15 years ago bought an old fashioned reading program based on known teaching methods and this program is now being used on the 6 th child in the family who has been struggling.
I have also been using the online program Maths on line to improve numeracy in some grandkids. It costs money but anything is better than the total illiteracy coming out of our schools. It seems only those really bright kids, or ones with dedicated parents, are coping.
Part of the problem is teachers reluctance to discipline kids and I have been stunned at how grateful highschool teachers have been when I encouraged them to discipline a teenage granchild who was acting out at school.
If the system doesn’t change we are going to become the laughing stock of the world and suffer a huge shortage of workers capable of doing more than swinging a shovel.

One thing positive about education in Australia - we are rid of that idiot, Birmingham, from the portfolio. But, a literary standard of 39th out of 41: hell’s bells! It is quite obvious, too, displayed everyday by our university-miseducated 'journalists’ and the Ocker, nasally sheilas infesting their ABC. It's all very well to say that it's “unacceptable”, but we have been accepting it for a long time now, and nothing is being done, because those people who are the cause of the problem, the ones expected to fix the problem, are barely literate themselves. And there are “400,000 children in schools who cannot read” simply because their teachers are not very good at reading either. The rot was spread among the so-called educators long ago. One state in Australia accepts a score of 17.9 to get into teaching! The acceptable score is 80!

Australia is not capable of educating its children any more and, consequently, incapable of training them for the workforce. We will soon be the the ignorant fuzzy wuzzies needing to be governed by educated immigrants. Perhaps that is why our also-dumb politicians are swamping us with immigrants. But, hang on: immigrants who can speak English don't want to come here anymore. Bugger!

Like so many things these days parents seem to repudiate responsibility for the rearing of their children from discipline to education. I was already reading and writing to a great extent before I attended year one, taught to me by my mother.

From political correctness to education we seem to have lost our way and are adopting attitudes and methods than have been shown not to work.

Let's get back to a good grounding in phonetics for instance and away from newfangled ideas from mostly Left Leaning Idealist who think that teaching is a sinecure which they don't appear to have an aptitude for when at University...... If what I read about illiteracy is correct in these establishments.

Over education is “the” blight of our society….more work, less life-style at taxpayer expense!

A little more emphasis on morals and truth would result in much better literacy and numeracy outcomes. Isn't it academia that has sold out to pseudo science to embrace the gw fantasy hence causing aussies to pay far to much for power.

The social engineers told us that smacking children resulted in violence. Now with no smacking we have untold violence against teachers and other students. We have a moral deficiency problem in academia whose dogmas have produced such a non thinking illiterate bunch. I mean look at who they are likely to vote in at next election. Says it all.

Following on from the benighted runner perhaps everyone should be made to participate in the kind of "education" described on on this website:
http://www.aceministries.com
The purpose of which is to create one-dimensional ultra conformist zombies.