In government the NSW Liberals & Nationals’ goal is to ensure all students receive a world-class education. Part of the challenge is improving the equity of the system. Currently, our performance is less equitable than other comparable countries including Canada, Finland, Ireland, Japan, South Korea and Sweden.
Recently, the NSW Auditor General found that NSW had a high concentration of poor outcomes in certain schools and regions. Each year up to 15 per cent of students are not reaching the minimum level of achievement needed to progress.1 Likewise, a 2006 OECD study showed that 14 per cent of 15-year-old NSW students can hardly read.
Students that are over represented in terms of poor performance include Indigenous Australians, those speaking a language other than English (LOTE) and those living in rural and regional NSW.
The NSW Liberals & Nationals have already released a number of policies and discussion papers designed to improve the quality of education in NSW including:
Encouraging Mature Aged Entry into the NSW Teaching Profession: Recruitment of high quality teachers into the public education system to boost teacher numbers.
Increasing Preschool Participation: Boosting preschool participation rates to ensure at least 95 per cent of four-year olds attend preschool two days a week.
