Key indicators from a Council of Australia Government Reform Council report suggests little student improvement and a significant fall in attendance rates in Australian schools, said Christopher Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education today.

“Australia has made no significant gains in lifting the number of students reaching the minimum benchmarks for literacy and numeracy since Labor was elected in 2008,” he said.

“With respect to improvement between 2008 and 2010 the report suggests that... the proportion of students achieving the national minimum standard has not changed in most year levels. ‘No change’ is hardly a glowing assessment of improvement.

“Cutting Howard Government programmes like the targeted tuition vouchers in literacy and numeracy for students below the national average has proved a disaster.

“Instead of continuing successful programmes the Government has invested billions of dollars into national partnerships handballing all the responsibility to State and Territory governments.

Today’s report goes on to say that the $371 million for Low SES School Communities national partnership has “no common performance indicators or milestones which would allow us to meaningfully report performance information across the entire National Partnership.”

“How on earth can Labor claim they are improving outcomes for Low SES school communities, when there is no evidence on performance to back up this claim,” Mr Pyne said.

“Billions of unaccounted for taxpayer dollars have been flowing to the states without the Government having any idea as to whether the programmes are successful,” he said.

“The former Coalition Government targeted students who needed help the most and gave funding directly to schools where possible and performance of the programmes could actually be monitored.

“The Government has made wasting money an art form. For the Labor Party to claim the mantle of education after four years of stagnation is a national joke,” Mr Pyne said.