In today’s talking points: Education minister Susan Close has announced $67.5 million will be spent to boost results in the state’s struggling public primary schools; Victorian students may have to take literacy and numeracy test for VCE; More and more Chinese students join overseas tours; Chinese undergraduates who perform poorly would not continue their courses.
SA Government Prompt to Spend More on Public Education After NAPLAN Results
Education minister Susan Close has announced $67.5 million will be spent over four years to boost results in the state’s struggling public primary schools. Raw results from the May test, released today, show South Australia is the worst performing mainland state in 16 out of 20 categories. “Improvements do cost money, and we have a $70 million injection over the next four years for our public primary schools, for more teachers and better strategies”. The South Australian government plans to further analyze the data and identify primary school students who need assistance. Nationally, reading and numeracy scores in South Australia have improved since 2008 but writing scores have declined since 2011. Overall Queensland and Western Australia have shown the most improvement over the last ten year period.
Read more at: abc.net.au
Victorian students may have to take literacy and numeracy test for VCE
The state’s authority is examining to put down a new compulsory literacy and numeracy test that students must ace before graduating high school. It is also deciding whether students would have to meet a minimum score for NAPLAN to graduate with VCE or VCAL. These plans are the result from the stagnation of literacy and numeracy levels of Victorian students for the past four consecutive years.
An alike system is already functioning in Western Australia. NSW students must gain top 3 NAPLAN levels for reading, writing and numeracy to be pre-qualified to complete high school. If they fail to do so, they would have the chance to retake the exams through online tests between year 9 and year 12.
Read more at: SMH
Overseas study tours are becoming more favourable among Chinese students
According to English First, there has been about a 40 percent rise in the number of students going on study tours this summer. Regardless of the high cost of around $4000 to $6000.
In 2016, 73 percent of tuniu.com participants were middle school students, 11 percent were primary school students and only 3 percent were collage students. Showing that Chinese parents are more willing to allow their children to go on tours at a very young age when compared with other countries. When sending students abroad, parents hope it may expand their children’s view scope. And at the meantime, improve their language skills, communication abilities, and independent development.
Read more at: ChinaDaily
Chinese undergraduates who perform poorly would not continue their courses
Huazhong University of Science and Technology stated that their undergraduate students who perform poorly would not be allowed to continue their bachelor courses, instead they would be forced to face a degree downgrade.
While many argue that it is too harsh to deny a student’s right to receive a bachelor’s degree, after fighting to be admitted to the establishment. The university responds by saying, “Students who don’t get enough credits will be given another opportunity to continue their studies, rather than simply drop out of school,” and arguing that the new policies would not affect the high flyers that study hard.
Read more at: ChinaDaily