Essay by Eric Worrall

The CO2 ate my homework…

Climate change set to drive down school results and job prospects: Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index 

Zurich Australia & Mandala
03/02/2025

Extreme heat is set to reduce the academic attainment of Australian students by up to seven per cent, which could translate to $73,000 in lost earnings during their lifetime, according to a landmark new report.

…

Extreme heat is projected to reduce writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, and numeracy by over 7% in some parts of the country by 2060, with students in the Northern Territory and Queensland disproportionately impacted.

Two-thirds of schools in Australia currently face high climate risk. This is set to increase to 84% of schools by 2060 under an intermediate climate scenario with 2 degrees Celsius of warming.

Australian students are projected to experience 34 annual heatwave days by 2060.

…

Mandala Partner Dr Adam Triggs said:

“High classroom temperatures can slow children’s cognitive ability and cognitive function, impairing the way students make decisions and process and retain information.

“Under a 2C temperature rise by 2060, our modelling shows this could equate to a $73,000 reduction in lifetime earnings – the equivalent of missing an entire year of employment.

“Perhaps most troubling is how climate risks compound existing inequalities. The same schools already facing socio-educational disadvantage are often those most exposed to climate impacts, creating a double burden for vulnerable communities.

…

Read more: https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2025/02/climate-change-set-to-drive-down-school-results-and-job-prospects-zurich-mandala-climate-risk-index/85797/

The referenced report is available here.

The NSW and Queensland education systems have bigger problems than climate change.

We pulled our kid out of the Queensland state system because of out of control bullying. During the last week, a visiting education inspector approached me and asked me if there were any problems. I explained we were pulling our kid out and why. I’m guessing the school teachers gave the inspector a different story, because I got some pretty angry looks a few days later – one of the teachers must have spotted me talking to the inspector, and figured out too late where the inspector’s information had come from. None of them lost their jobs for lying to the inspector.

In addition, there is a big problem with experienced teachers in remote communities. Newly qualified teachers are pressured to serve a few years in the outback, but there are real risks to safety being posted to such schools, so I doubt they stay long. Many outback towns in Queensland and NSW suffer lawlessness and gang violence, along with high levels of alcohol and drug abuse. Towns like Alice Springs in the Northern Territory regularly feature in the news in Australia, but there are plenty of messed up remote towns which rarely make the news, perhaps because they are not serviced by a high quality airport.

I saw one of these trouble spot towns in NSW with my own eyes in 2023 on a road trip. The town rarely makes the news, they don’t have a regular air service. I spoke to someone who was repairing an EV charger, he was laughing – repairing that charger was making him rich, the gangs kept wrecking it. The town doesn’t have a gasoline station, and many of the shop windows are boarded up. The EV charger repair guy kept his van door locked the whole time, even though he was only 3 ft from his van. In the 5 minutes I stopped, two teenagers did a walk by of my vehicle. I didn’t hang around for long.

I’m not dissing the people who stick it out, and try to deliver an education to students despite intolerable working conditions – those people are heroes as far as I’m concerned.

But there are a lot of issues with Australian education which need to be fixed, which have nothing to do with climate change.

And even if climate change did become a problem, an air conditioner and a bit of building refurbishment is all that is required to make poor quality school rooms habitable, whatever happens to global temperature.

If you want to see how bad gang violence is in some inland towns in Australia, the following video provides some insight.