State’s students lag in key testing

TASMANIA outperforms only the Northern Territory in 10 of the 20 NAPLAN measures.

The full results for this year’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy tests were released yesterday.

The state is ranked fifth of the eight Australian jurisdictions for Year 3 reading and writing, Year 5 reading and writing, and Year 7 reading.

For Year 9 students on all test areas — reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy — Tasmania is ranked seventh.

Tasmania is also seventh for Year 7 spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy, and Year 3 and 5 spelling.

Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said he welcomed the report, which he said showed improvements in some areas when results were compared with those from previous years.

“The report shows Year 3 is Tasmania’s strongest year level, with significant improvements in reading and grammar and punctuation,” Mr Rockliff said.

“While the report indicates Tasmania’s strongest area is reading, Year 5 numeracy results have also improved significantly over time.

“[The] report also shows the high performance of our female students, who are performing at or above the national mean for all literacy domains and year levels.”

The State Government’s goal is to be at or above the national average on all NAPLAN measures by 2020.

“We know there is still more work to be done to continue to lift education standards by improving literacy and numeracy,” Mr Rockliff said.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said NAPLAN results had stagnated across the country.

“Despite record levels of investment in our schools, we’re not getting the gains in literacy and numeracy skills that we would expect to see,” Senator Birmingham said yesterday.

The results from last year’s National Assessment Program Civics and Citizenship tests, which measure students’ understanding and knowledge of Australia’s system of government, historical and current governance practices, the importance of diversity and multiculturalism, and knowledge of Australian identity and culture, were also disappointing.

“Just 55 per cent of students in Year 6 met the proficient standard, while the figure has dropped down to 38 per cent for Year 10 students — a decline of 6 per cent from the previous round of testing in 2013,” he said.

“These results are woeful and should be of serious concern.”

NAPLAN tests test all students, while the civics and citizenship tests were completed by 5624 Year 6 students in 336 schools and 4776 Year 10 students in 308 schools.