Full text of this item will be available via http://www.affairs.cqu.edu.au/cqutoday/ Schools can pull up socks over 'standards' Queensland schools can improve their use of 'standards' - not the sort about behaviour and uniforms, but rather the sort about whether students understand things.

That is according to Central Queensland University researcher Dr Ken Appleton who says that it's not a question of whether standards are slipping, as they don't yet exist.

"Standards are statements of what students are expected to know and/or to do at a particular time in their schooling ... they need to state what students are expected to understand," he said.

"Neither the old content syllabuses nor the new outcomes-based syllabuses provide explicit statements of expected learning (understandings), and it requires a considerable change to the way they work." Dr Appleton said the Queensland Education Minister Anna Bligh has recently released a discussion paper on assessment and reporting, which queries whether the education system should have 'standards'.

He said standards were indeed desirable to provide a sharper focus to teaching, to provide a meaningful basis for reporting to parents, and to give education systems a way of deciding if there are areas in which they need to improve.

ENDS For interview call Dr Ken Appleton on 07 4930 9520