By Heath Gilmore EDUCATION
THE academic performance of Australian students is more dependent on the wealth and resources of their family than in other countries, an international report shows.
This importance of family wealth in academic results has increased in the past three years compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
It has led to Australia being classified in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment report as having average equity for educational opportunity. In earlier reports it was ranked as high.
The survey is conducted every three years to assess the knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science of 15-year-olds in 65 countries. Last year about 470,000 students participated.
Dr Sue Thomson, an Australian Council of Education Research director, said achieving equitable outcomes for students in Australia was becoming more difficult.
''We don't resource lower socio-economic students enough,'' she said. ''There has been funding programs, but maybe there are other ways, like in Finland, one of the high-achieving countries, where students with problems are targeted early with intensive programs and support put in place.''
For the first time, the survey results for Australia have been broken into three sectors - government, Catholic and independent schools.
Students from independent schools performed significantly better than from Catholic and government schools.
In turn, Catholic schools scored significantly higher than their counterparts in the government sector.
However, Dr Thomson said these differences were dependent on socio-economic background.
''Students in the independent or Catholic school sectors bring with them an advantage from their socio-economic background that is not as strongly characteristic of students in the government sector,'' she said.
''Some government schools have lost some of their best students and those left behind have seen their aspirations lowered because they are not surrounded by high achievers.''