In this issue:

• Rethinking child care policy
• Applying but missing out on university
• Time out of the labour market a common experience for Australian youth
• International trends and employment in Australia
• Using data to evaluate student achievement in secondary schools
• ACER UPDATE

Recent media attention to rethinking child care policy and funding is well overdue writes ACER's Research Director, Early Childhood Education, Dr Alison Elliott. In this article, first published in the opinion section of The Canberra Times on 18 January, Dr Elliott argues that child care is a 'shambles'. As early childhood experts and commentators have often said, much current child care and early childhood policy is based on outdated ideas of parents’ workforce participation, family and workplace mobility, and what constitutes a ‘working week’. It also largely ignores the long discredited distinction between ‘child care’ and ‘early childhood education.'

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This is the time of year when newspapers feature stories on Year 12 students who apply to go to university, but miss out. Recent ACER research has looked at the number of young people in this group, their background characteristics, and what happens to them after they do not get into university.The study, Unmet Demand? Characteristics and Activities of University Applicants Not Offered a Place, was released by ACER in December 2005 as part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY).

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The majority of young Australians experience at least a short period of time outside of full-time education and the labour force in the early years after leaving secondary school, research has found. A report released by ACER in November 2005 identified the characteristics, activities and later destinations of young people who had spent time outside of the labour force. 

It focused on a group of young people who were not in full-time education or the labour force, that is, they were not studying full-time, nor were they working or looking for work for at least one month during that time. The analyses were prompted by the concern that relatively little is known about young people outside of the labour force and how their experience affects their future employment or study prospects.

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Australian jobs will tend to be more qualified in future, and there will be a need to increase the proportion of new and existing workers with qualifications according to a presentation at a conference about responding to economic trends and social needs in Australian education and training. The paper presented by Gerald Burke and Phil McKenzie at the Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET) annual conference argued there is also a need to increase the qualifications of those underemployed or not employed, including older people, to increase their employability.

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Research conducted on VCE data over the past ten years illustrates the flawed general statement that ‘girls outperform boys’ at VCE level, and draws attention to the dangers associated with referring to differences between classes as the class/teacher effect or as the teacher effect. These patterns are interpreted quite differently when both the data and the statistical analyses are verified and interpreted in context.

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Australian students among the highest users of computers at school and in the home: OECD report

A new analysis of 2003 results in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has found that Australian students are among the world’s leading users of computers in education both at school and in the home. The study, Are students ready for a technology-rich world? was released by the OECD in Paris on 24 January. It is a previously unpublished analysis of data collected during the 2003 round of PISA testing. The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) led the international consortium that conducted the PISA 2003 assessments and collected the data used in this new analysis. The report is now available from the OECD website.

 

The implementation of Improvements to the National Testing Strategy and Assessment System for Basic and Secondary Education

ACER has a consulting project to evaluate the national assessment system in Jordan, suggest improvements and then conduct training to enable the Ministry in Jordan to be able to implement the suggestions for improvement. The project team is being lead by Professor Jim Tognolini, Research Director, System and School Testing. The project will commence early in 2006 with a visit to Jordan to interview key educators and educational groups regarding the current situation. The Project is expected to be completed by the beginning of September 2006.

 

Mediasphere

ACER Assessment Services has signed an agreement with the multi media, software company Mediasphere. Under this agreement ACER staff, Prue Anderson and Mark Butler are developing units of assessment to accompany the already developed e-learning module for beginners. In the longer term it is anticipated that ACER will provide paper scripted assessment objects that can be converted into multimedia objects, by Mediasphere staff, for other levels of reading and mathematics.

 

Global Achieve tests in India and the Gulf States

ACER conducted the Global Achieve tests of English, mathematics and science in India and a number of countries in the Middle East including UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar in November 2005. Global Achieve is a pencil and paper test for students in Years 3 to 10. It was first administered in English and mathematics in 2004 in schools in Dubai and India. Science was tested for the first time in 2005 at Years 6, 7 and 8.