Australian students aren’t trying in the Pisa exams. They should be congratulated for their disdain

‘I think there’s cause for national pride in our true Pisa results after the Save Our Schools survey’s revelations.’ Photograph: Tim Macpherson/Getty Images

News this week revealed that a full three-quarters of Australian high school students admit they aren’t “fully trying” in their Pisa tests. File this under the category of water being wet or the Pope’s Catholicism not being much of a shock.

The Save Our Schools Coalition has surveyed the year 9 students about shared attitudes towards the “Programme for International Student Assessment” exams that are taken annually. The tests exist to create international ranking tables for reading, science and mathematics. The idea is that national education systems can have some means of benchmarking to establish if their educational policy and investment is yielding comparable results with the rest of the world’s.