Australian literacy levels have been in freefall since the turn of the century, and this has resulted in underprepared school leavers and a decline in teacher expertise, according to an analysis by the Centre of Independent Studies. In their latest paper, authors Deidre Clary and Fiona Mueller found that one in five Year 9 students failed to meet the national minimum writing standard in 2018 when analysing NAPLAN results. By Year 9, boys are also, on average, up to two years behind girls when it comes to writing skills. As a result, students are entering teaching degrees in university with a low level of writing proficiency and graduate with a lack of confidence in the area. Clary and Mueller said that the loss of teacher competence in English has had “dire consequences” for students and will make the literacy issue harder to fix with each passing generation. “It is possible …