Government ‘must deliver rural STEM reforms’

One of Australia’s top science education experts has called for a national strategy to tackle “a widening gap” in science literacy between metropolitan and rural schools.

Queensland University of Technology professor Terry Lyons says that both Labor and coalition federal governments have ignored the issue for more than a decade.

In a QUT statement responding to the OECD’s latest global education survey, Lyons said that Australia’s declining performance in science and mathematics also showed that rural students were falling further behind.