As Victorian students take home their final report card for the year, James Merlino’s report card is amongst the worst.
Labor’s Education Minister, James Merlino’s report card for 2019 is a sorry sight, with failures across the board, much more effort is needed in 2020.
Despite claims of making Victoria the “Education State”, James Merlino has failed Victorian students with Victoria’s academic results continuing to go backwards.
Victorian student results are declining in reading, mathematics and science, particularly in regional Victoria where students are being left behind by Labor.
International benchmarking results also show that students themselves are reporting they aren’t learning in Victorian classrooms due to the lack of classroom discipline, hardly surprising given the powers teachers and principals have had stripped from them by James Merlino.
Even by Labor’s own measure, Victorian schools are on the slide. James Merlino has now after consecutive years of poor results failed to publish the results of his own survey into pride and confidence in Victorian government schools.
Making a further mockery of Labor’s “Education State” claims, James Merlino has also given up on recording Victorian student’s results in science achievement.
Despite promising to make all schools asbestos-free by 2020, James Merlino has abjectly failed to keep his promise to school communities across Victoria.
James Merlino is failing Victorian students and our schools.
He must try harder in 2020.
Cindy McLeish MP
Shadow Minister for Education