South Australia’s complex educational environment has increasing gaps in inequality between high-and low-socioeconomic communities that have contributed to some alarming outcomes for students and schools.
Students experiencing the greatest measures of disadvantage are significantly behind in achieving their secondary qualifications. Students from the state’s most disadvantaged schools attain their high school qualifications at less than half the rate of their more advantaged peers –just one in three completes their South Australia Certificate of Education (SACE). Completion rates for vulnerable students in flexible learning options streams are even lower, with an estimated one in 20 graduating. One in four don’t complete either schooling option.
This lack of qualifications can impact their future ability to live a life of their choosing – reducing opportunities for career paths and earnings.
Fewer students are excelling in foundational skills like literacy and numeracy, with NAPLAN results indicating a decreasing number of South Australian students are keeping up with their peers in other states and territories. The number of students studying a language other than English has halved in the last two decades.
Recent research from the Grattan Institute highlighted increasing numbers of South Australian students could be at risk of finishing school without the basic skills for life and work. And without those skills, they’ll find it harder to secure good jobs, participate in their communities and build lives of prosperity.
