Chinese Mandarin Learner: See they are doing it all wrong they are only rote learning...

29 July 2012

See they are doing it all wrong they are only rote learning...

Another media report comparing East Asian education to our Australian education system. Killer report is from Dr Ben Jensen, School Education Program Director of the Grattan Institute.

There are killer facts from this article (some of which we have seen somewhere before);

Money is poured into Oz education

However it is certainly not encouraging or increasing the number of our students learning an Asian LOTE. Asian LOTE study is at an all time low in Australian schools.

Rhetoric between policy and reality of what is going on in the classroom does not match. Lot of talk and little implementation.

There was 44% increase in spending on education in Oz schools between 2000 and 2008. Yet we are falling behind. This is most embarrassing.

In East Asia teacher status is high. Perception is that they are doing an important job preparing youth for for the future. As they are respected these teachers are given time and resources to prepare awesome lessons to teach their students.

Australian teachers on the other hand...

"In modern Australia it is a different story. Teachers are certainly not given this status; indeed mention the word status and Australians immediately equate this with salary and perks. Too often our schools are treated like repair shops as the community dumps more and more of its social problems on them. Nor are teachers the proper focus of government rhetoric in the so-called education revolution."

More here; When it comes to status, the teachers get less than top marks

There is a perception that when we compare our Oz Education system to East Asian education systems that it is like comparing apples to oranges. Learning by rote: why Australia should not follow the Asian model of education

Here comes a very oversimplified generalisation which many in the Ed. business and Oz media like to believe. East Asian studentS only learn by rote, whereas our Ozzie kids are learning problem solving abilities and higher order thinking skills. Taking this one step further Oz Education is doing it right....whereas those East Asian systems are doing it wrong. After all those killer facts and figures are based on a European tests and league tables. We can dismiss the fact that a 15 year old student in Shanghai, China is performing at a level two or three times above an Australian student of the same age. Apparently we in Oz can dismiss that three out of the top four education systems are in East Asia.Sigh.....