CANBERRA, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Australian students are among the worst behaved in the classroom in the developed world, according to an international study, prompting the nation's education minister to call for "zero tolerance" from teachers.
According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-olds in the fields of reading, maths and sciences, Australia was well below the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standard for classroom behavior.
Thirty-two percent of Australian students were found to not listen to the teacher in class, compared with 15 percent in Singapore and 9 percent in Finland, while 29 percent of teachers found they had to wait "too long for students to quieten down" - well above the OECD average of 19 percent.
Surprisingly, one in three students were noisy and caused disorder in the classroom and 26 percent of students took too long to start working in class.
Overall, the study showed Australia was well below the OECD average for "classroom discipline," prompting Education Minister Simon Birmingham to call for a "zero tolerance approach" to bad classroom behavior.
"This research demonstrates that more money spent within a school doesn't automatically buy you better discipline, engagement or ambition," Birmingham told News Corp.
"Ill-discipline or a bad attitude doesn't only hurt the outcomes of the student who brings such an approach to school, but can infect entire classrooms of students."
