Senator Allison asked the Minister representing the Minister for Education, Science and Training, upon notice, on 10 May 2004:

(1) (a) In what capacity is Dr Kevin Donnelly employed by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations; and (b) what are his current responsibilities.

(2) Does the Minister agree with Dr Donnelly's statement, reported in the Sunday Herald Sun of 2 May 2004 that `An education mafia has been running our system for years'.

(3) Does the Minister agree that schools should adopt rote learning of multiplication tables, poems and historical dates, as promoted by Dr Donnelly.

(4) Does the Minister agree with Dr Donnelly's reported statement that `National literacy and numeracy benchmarks are flawed and, compared to overseas benchmarks, set at a lower level'.

Senator Vanstone (Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation) —The Minister for Education, Science and Training has provided the following answer to the honourable Senator's question:

(1) (a) and (b) These questions will be answered by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

(2) Dr Donnelly is entitled to his own views. A number of commentators have made observations about the influence of particular groups on education policy and practice. For example, the opposition of the teacher unions to basic skills testing is well known.

(3) While the Australian Government has a strong interest in the reporting of student achievement against common national standards, the State and Territory government and non-government education authorities determine the curricula undertaken in schools.

In the syllabus and curriculum documents currently used in the States and Territories, there is a clear recognition that children need to recall or mentally determine basic multiplication and division facts. By the end of Year 4, it is generally assumed by these documents that all children will be able to recall multiplication facts up to 10 X 10 and to work out division facts from known multiplication facts.

Educators agree that children are disadvantaged from a speed point of view if they don't have number facts at their fingertips. These number facts can be established through some memorisation practice, as well as activities such as:

Providing opportunities for children to develop their own informal calculation strategies. Children might know that 6 x 5 is 30, but do not recall that 7 x 5 is 35. However, they can reason that the answer will be 5 more than 6 x 5;

Providing opportunities for children to compare different calculation methods; and

Encouraging children to look at the reasonableness of their answers.

(4) No. The Minister does not agree with Dr Donnelly's reported statement that the benchmarks are flawed and set at a lower standard than overseas benchmarks.

Every State and Territory undertakes rigorous standardised literacy and numeracy testing at Years 3, 5 and 7. These tests address the full range of the curriculum and the full range of students' ability. This ensures that teachers teach to the full curriculum, encouraging excellence while at the same time ensuring that all children have essential literacy and numeracy skills. The national comparable benchmark data is extracted from these State tests.

The national benchmark standards, as agreed by all Ministers, represent the minimum acceptable standard of literacy and numeracy that a student must have at a particular year level for the student to continue to make progress at school. As such, the benchmarks do not seek to describe the full curriculum or the full range of student achievement. The benchmarks have a strong equity component, with an expectation that all students should attain at least the level of skill they need to access further schooling.

Six studies were undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research from 1997 to 1999, to compare Australia's draft literacy and numeracy benchmarks with standards overseas. These studies were commissioned to inform the development of the final benchmarks and for use in reviewing the benchmarks at a later date. Student performance on items from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was also considered

Comparisons drawn between the Australian benchmarks and standards from other countries need to be treated carefully.

Overall, the studies found that the Australian benchmarks are set at a lower level than standards in other countries, because Australian benchmarks are minimum acceptable standards. Unlike the Australian benchmarks, most countries do not explicitly state that all students are expected to achieve a minimum standard in terms of actual performance, but instead set more aspirational standards.

The Australian benchmarks cover a smaller range of skills, because they are designed to include only essential elements needed by students to make progress at school (and elements agreed by all States/Territories). Most overseas documents examined were broader, more curriculum-oriented documents.