A new report calls for Australian schools to fundamentally overhaul their teaching methods in favour of science-backed education techniques. 

According to the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), the key to improving the nation's lagging academic results lies in embracing explicit instruction, repetition, and sustained practice, a stark contrast to the current preference for “pseudo-scientific” approaches that favour self-directed discovery over traditional rote learning.

The report criticises the prevailing educational practices in Australia, which it claims disregard the substantial body of research on cognitive science and educational psychology. 

It suggests that these misguided practices stem from an ideological, rather than evidence-based, understanding of how students learn. 

This approach appears to be supported by federal Education Minister Jason Clare's directive to education faculties, following a review last year, to pivot towards cognitive science-based learning and explicit instruction.

The report emphasises the swift impact such educational reforms can have on both academic performance and school culture. 

The report also takes aim at widely accepted but scientifically unsupported educational myths, such as the dominance of left or right brain hemispheres and the efficacy of learning styles based on visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic preferences. 

It argues for a teaching approach rooted in explicit instruction and a well-sequenced, knowledge-focused curriculum, highlighting the importance of connecting new information to existing knowledge for better retention.

The full report is accessible here.