Fed: Schools need literacy, numeracy teachers: Labor

AAP General News (Australia)
04-03-2007
Fed: Schools need literacy, numeracy teachers: Labor

By David Crawshaw

CANBERRA, April 3 AAP - Primary schools could employ specialist literacy and numeracy
teachers under a Labor proposal to improve student results.

Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith said today a Labor government would work
to ensure all students could add, subtract, read and write.

This strategy may include placing specialist literacy and numeracy teachers in primary
schools, in a similar vein to specialist subject teachers that already exist in high schools.

Mr Smith's comments follow the release of the 2005 national assessment results, which
found almost one in five Year 7 students failed to meet numeracy benchmarks, and one in
10 did not achieve reading standards.

The assessment showed the proportion of students failing to meet literacy and numeracy
benchmarks increased the longer they stayed at school, with results gradually deteriorating
between Years 3, 5 and 7.

"I think there's so much more we can do to improve our kids' performance," Mr Smith
told Network Ten today.

"Teachers do a great job, but we've got to start giving teachers more specialist skills
in literacy and numeracy.

"We've got to start having specialist literacy and numeracy teachers."

The younger children learnt the basics, the greater their chance of success later in
life, he said.

A spokesman for Mr Smith later said the idea had its genesis in a report released in
December 2005, Teaching Reading, which made important recommendations about the teaching
of literacy in Australia.

The report urged each school to identify a specialist literacy teacher to help their
fellow teachers monitor students' literacy as part of ongoing classroom learning.

Mr Smith's spokesman accused Education Minister Julie Bishop of blaming the states
for problems instead of acting in response to the report.

Ms Bishop has been vocal lately about her desire to see improvements in literacy and
numeracy teaching.

From next year, Year 9 students will join those in Years 3, 5 and 7 in sitting national
literacy and numeracy exams.

AAP dcr/sb/cp/de

KEYWORD: TEACHERS

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