Examines trends in Australian students’ performances over the past decade and considers implications for Australian schools policies. Abstract Reforming schools and improving student achievement levels are priorities for governments around the world. In Australia over the past decade, State, Territory and Commonwealth governments put considerable effort into improving the quality and equity of school education...

This report reviews research into assessment, especially in schools, analyses the pivotal role of assessment in learning and argues for its reconceptualisation by practitioners and policy makers to better support learning. Section 1 outlines some current pressures for assessment reform, introduces the concept of a learning assessment system designed to establish where learners are in...

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is collaborating with the Queensland Brain Institute to create Australia's first Science of Learning Centre., in which an emerging field of research is improving our understanding of how students learn. Advances in our understanding of human learning is challenging long-held asumptions about education. The centre will comprise researchers...

Nationally comparable data about school performances should be reported to the public, but should not be used to create league tables, according to this paper. Written by Geoff Masters, Glenn Rowley, John Ainley and Siek Toon Khoo, the paper was prepared for the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs to provide advice...

Does Australia have a world-class education system? If not, what kind of 'education revolution' would be required to achieve one? Geoff Masters examines findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).