Numeracy In Australia Essay

There has been a recognition that Australian schools require improvement in their numeracy performance. Thus, numeracy has become a key national priority for all Australian schools (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2009). Numeracy skills are an essential part of daily life and necessary for the workplace, therefore, there needs to be an emphasis on improving numeracy skills in order to prepare students for life outside of school. According to PISA, program for the international student assessment, Australia ranked 19th out 65 countries in numeracy, which is just at the mean level compared to the rest of the countries (Tout, 2015). Additionally, the PISA has demonstrated results indicating that Australian students’ performance

Numeracy is not just about solving algebraic expression, rather, it is about the application of mathematic in context and utilising skills to solve real life problems (Tout, 2015). Therefore, to be considered numerate, student should possess the ability to identify when and where they need to apply their mathematical knowledge and skill in order to critically analyse situations and solve practical problems (Council of Australian Government, 2008). The two curriculum documents emphasises the fact that numeracy is not just maths but has application to cross curriculum subjects such as science, geography and civics (ACARA, 2014; VCAA, 2015). The Victorian curriculum also highlights the importance of numeracy and extrapolates, that numeracy is not fundamentally defined by mathematics, rather has a much wider scope, therefore, numeracy is not something teachers assess separately, but must be incorporated into assessments of subjects across the board (VCAA,