Roundup: Landmark report calls for Australian education to move towards tailored learning

CANBERRA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Australia's education system has "failed a generation" of children, said a landmark report released Monday.

The "Through Growth to Achievement" report, authored by businessman David Gonski and commissioned by Education Minister Simon Birmingham, found that learning outcomes in reading, science and maths have been in decline for 18 years.

Gonski's review made 23 reform recommendations around assessment and reporting, all of which have been accepted in principle by the Australian government.

"This review is an opportunity for all levels of government, educators and families to turn around Australia's performance and build a stronger school system," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters on Monday.

"This is an opportunity we all must grasp to ensure this and future generations of students get the opportunities they need to succeed."

The report was the result of Gonski's second major review of Australia's education system and urged the government to modernize the industrial-era model of education and move towards individualized learning for every student.

It said that too many children were failing to reach their potential in the classroom.

"It is not designed to differentiate learning or stretch all students to ensure they achieve maximum learning growth every year, nor does it incentivise schools to innovate and continuously improve," the report said.

"Australia needs to review and change its model for school education."

It called for the implementation of a new online assessment tool that teachers could use to diagnose a student's exact level of literacy and numeracy.

Birmingham described the report as a comprehensive blueprint for the future of Australian education.

"This is a landmark report and it does absolutely encourage schools to focus in on how you progress each and every student to their maximum capability so that we shift the entire level of student performance and have more high achievers as well as fewer underachievers," Birmingham told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio on Monday.

"Teachers already do a lot of individualized, targeted teaching in their classrooms, but importantly these recommendations will put more tools and resources in the hands of teachers.

"Putting a really integrated national tool in the hands of teachers will enable them to be able to identify clearly where their students are progressing, how well they're progressing, how that compares with the rest of the country, and then what steps they should take to move each student to the best of their capabilities over a twelve month period.

"We want to see a system out of this report where each student is stretched to the maximum of their capabilities each and every year over the 12 or 13 years of their schooling."

One of Gonski's key findings was that current assessment tools were not providing teachers with "real-time or detailed data on a student's growth."

"Nor do they provide teachers with information or resources about suggested next steps to improve student outcomes."

Gonski review received submissions from seven state and territory governments who pointed out that assessment tools were not uniform across every school.

Birmingham will discuss the report with his state and territory counterparts at a special meeting of the Coalition of Australian governments Education Council on Friday where Gonski will provide a briefing. Enditem