Congrats? Aussie High Schoolers Are Among the Worst Behaved Students In the Developed World

Aussie kids are getting up to no good in classrooms.

Not shocking enough? How about this? According a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Australian students are far less well-behaved than their peers in other developed nations.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), surveying approximately 14,500 students across 760 schools, found that more than 44 per cent of Aussie students reported noise and disorder in their classrooms. Science classes were used as a sample.

The situation was worst in Tasmania and New South Wales, where about half of all students reported the problem occurring most frequently.

Though noise and disorder in almost every class was a common complaint from about half of all students in disadvantaged schools, approximately one-third of those in advantaged schools also said students didn’t listen to their teacher, and that they found it difficult to learn, as a result.

Executive director of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, Rob Nairn, told Student Edge there’s no “silver bullet” to solve this problem, though student engagement certainly helps.

“I think in a lot of cases, it’s about what’s happening in the individual classroom; it’s about the engagement of the student in the class that they’re in,” he said.

“By engaging the student in their learning, [teachers] are able to alleviate some of those problems."

Teachers told the ABC some horror stories about their own classroom issues, with one Year 9 teacher recalling an incident where some boys skipped class to smear the school gym with their poo.

Not cool, guys.

Photo: ABC