National Civics and Citizenship Assessment Results Released

The Australian, 18 February 2009

The results of the 2007 national assessment of civics and citizenship have indicated that a significant number of Australian students were not meeting national benchmark standards in civics and citizenship knowledge.

Over 7000 students in Year 6 and 5500 students in Year 10 from both government and non-government schools had sat the national assessment tests at the end of 2007. The National Year 6 and Year 10 Civics and Citizenship Results 2007 report, which was released by the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), indicated that 54 per cent of students in Year 6 and 41 per cent of students in Year 10 had successfully met the expected standards.

MCEETYA also found that approximately 20 per cent of Year 10 students had failed to meet the expected standard for Year 6 students. The report indicated that ‘this was especially the case in relation to information about the constitutional structure of Australian democracy. Lacking such fundamental information will restrict the capacity of students to make sense of many other aspects of Australian democratic forms and processes, and they may, therefore, be disadvantaged in their capacity to engage in meaningful ways in many other levels of civic action or discourse.’

The report claimed that its findings suggested that many schools were failing to include civics and citizenship teaching in the curriculum. It also claimed that students tended to perform better on the national assessment where their schools provided them with the opportunity to participate in civics and citizenship activities and in school governance activities.

The results from 2007 were an improvement on the results from the first national assessment of civics and citizenship, which was conducted in 2004.

For further information, or to access a copy of the report, visit the MCEETYA Website.

 

 

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