A national report on education released today shows some encouraging signs in Tasmania, but highlights there is still work to be done, which is why education is again a focus for us this year.
The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services compares the performance of Tasmania’s schools in 2014 and 2015 (where available) with other states and territories, and the national average.
The report shows Tasmania’s education services are comparable to the nation across a number of performance measures, and we are improving across key measures too.
We are getting the foundation right, with Tasmania recording the second highest proportion of children attending a pre-school program in 2014 and the highest rate of trained teachers delivering a preschool program of 99.2 per cent, compared to the national average of 61.2 per cent.
Retention rates have shown signs of improving, though the figures reflect the year prior to the introduction of our Year 11 and 12 extension program in rural and regional high schools.
The Year 10 to Year 12 Apparent Retention rate for Tasmanian Government school students rose to 70.1 per cent in 2014, from 68.4 per cent in 2013.
The Year 12 completion rate also improved slightly from 47 per cent in 2013 to 50 per cent in 2014.
While these are encouraging signs, we look forward to greater improvement once the data reflects the 2015 school year, when our Year 11 and 12 extension policy began rolling out.
Already we know this initiative resulted in a 38 per cent increase in enrolments at the six schools that extended in 2015. A further six schools are delivering the program this year.
However, Tasmania remains well below the national average of Year 12 completion, which is 72 per cent, that’s why we are continuing to accelerate the delivery of the extension program.
The report also includes comparable school attendance data for 2014 and 2015. Attendance rates for Tasmanian Government school students in Year 1-10 remains steady at 91 per cent, in line with the national average.
A new data measure introduced in this report which shows the proportion of full-time students in Years 1-10 whose attendance rate is 90 per cent or more shows primary school students are above the Australian average, while high school students are slightly lower.
While it is great to see some improvements, clearly there is more to be done, and we are a committed to doing just that.
This year we are continuing to extend more high schools to Years 11 and 12, and will announce more schools extending in 2017 in Term 1. We are also rolling out the Learning in Families Together initiative in 80 schools and will finalise the Education Act Review.
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