The most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey enables educators, policy makers and the wider community to compare Australian students with each other, as well as with their counterparts across the world. PISA measures the extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills that young adults need to meet the challenges of the future. A new module in PISA 2018 looked at Global Competence, and the first dimension to be examined for Australian students is their awareness of global issues. Students were asked to report the extent to which they knew about seven issues: climate change and global warming; global health (e.g. epidemics); migration; international conflicts; hunger or malnutrition in different parts of the world; causes of poverty, and equality between men and women in different parts of the world. Responses were used to construct an index of awareness of global issues. Positive values on this index mean that the student expressed a greater awareness about global issues than the average student across OECD countries. [Australia's participation in PISA 2018 was managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research and funded by commonwealth, state and territory governments.]