(Australia) Assessment test 'national tragedy' as 1/3 of kids fail literacy/numeracy goals
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Annual National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test scores have been released after 1.2 million students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sat the test in March.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) said the results showed a slight improvement in numeracy scores in years 5, 7 and 9. . . .
One-third of Australian students are not meeting "challenging but reasonable" expectations in literacy and numeracy in what experts are warning is "stagnant" underperformance.
About 10 per cent of students are so far behind their peers they need additional support to catch up to the two-thirds of students who met or exceeded expectations.
"My personal view is that I'm very concerned. My colleague called it a national tragedy," Tanya Serry from La Trobe University said.
"The reason it can be considered a national tragedy is the research evidence tells us we should be seeing about 90–95 per cent of students learning to read."
Professor Serry said it was the fourth straight year, since tougher marking was introduced in 2023, that NAPLAN tests have shown hundreds of thousands of students not meeting the mark.
"This is not a statistic that we can be comfortable with," Professor Serry said. . . .
"Individual NAPLAN scores aren't exact measures of students' ability and other factors can affect the results they get in any one test," Dr Larsen said. . . .
However, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) said it was important as the only national assessment that was comparable for all students across the country.
"The first question that would be asked if we didn't have this is why don't we know where our students are up to?" ACARA chief executive Stephen Gniel said.
"After all, those results are about our children, they're about the leaders of tomorrow." . . .
Mr Gniel said this year's results showed some good news in numeracy in years 5, 7 and 9, with an extra 29,000 students in the exceeding category compared to 2023 results.
"This is something we want to celebrate, and we want teachers to really reflect on the good practice that's happening there," Mr Gniel said.
However, the results showed students in year 3 recorded their lowest numeracy scores since 2023, and experts cautioned the rise in senior years was very small.
"That's always a good thing, you do have to squint to see it though, it's a relatively small increase so I don't think we'd want to read too much into that," Mr Joseph said.
Education Minister Jason Clare welcomed the lift in numeracy but said the results showed more work was needed.
"There is good news here in numeracy. It's going up and up in year 5 and in high school," Mr Clare said.
"Year 3 maths is a different story. That's why we are fixing the maths curriculum for the first three years of school."
Phonics linked to schools with improved literacy
Mr Clare said work was also needed in literacy and pointed to changes in teaching practice being rolled out nationally, as well as increased public-school funding.
"The reading results show we still have real challenges. They also show us how to fix them," Mr Clare said.
"This year's results show that in schools using explicit teaching methods, including phonics, and small-group tutoring to give kids who are struggling extra intensive help, results are going up and up.". . .
Female students again outperformed male students in literacy, with male students similarly outperforming female students in numeracy.
ACARA said the gender gap had been in the data for "many a year" and required further investigation.
"There's a parliamentary inquiry into these disparities between male and female students, and it's really important that we do a deep dive in this," Mr Gniel said. . .
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