Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I present the Education and Employment References Committee report titled Effectiveness of the National Assessment Program—Literacy and numeracy together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The NAPLAN report has been a long time coming to the Senate, and it is with some pleasure that I table the report today and have it available for the public to see the committee's assessment of the submissions presented to it. The committee received a number of submissions from academics, teachers and schools. As you would appreciate, Mr Deputy President, the lead-up to the introduction of this annual test was a little contentious in Australia. Before the test commenced in May 2008, states and territories in Australia were conducting tests in literacy and numeracy. Initially, the committee looked at how we might make comparisons with those tests conducted across the states and territories but, as I am sure the Senate can appreciate, it was an impossible task. The tests were too different to really be able to provide any objective analysis of the state of student outcomes across the country.

In 2008, the NAPLAN test was introduced. NAPLAN is administered across the country in both primary and secondary schools to students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and tests across four core areas of reading, writing, language and numeracy. The test results are made available some four months later. The submissions received by the committee went into great detail about the test. It is obvious that the test is of great interest to parents, schools and universities, particularly those that have education as part of their fraternity. Many issues were raised with the committee, including the view that students were nervous before the test and that that could somehow impact on the results. We also had a number of submissions saying that teachers were really moving away from a broad commitment to school learning and were teaching towards the test. There were also those who thought that NAPLAN was a very good diagnostic tool. It is fair to say that the committee saw a great depth and breadth of interest from everyone concerned with education—and we should be concerned about education.

It is critically important for us in the parliament and for everyone concerned with schooling to make sure that the investment we make in schools is the best that it can possibly be and that we ensure student outcomes are as good as we can get them. It is important to remind ourselves of the educational goals of NAPLAN, which are to ensure that Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence and that all the young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens. They are two very good and very important goals. Certainly the committee was of the view that, generally speaking, NAPLAN was working and that it was a good tool.

Further, it was felt by some that there was too much of a gap between the time the test was administered and when the test results were made available. If we are measuring the performance of our students then those results should be available quickly so that appropriate diagnostic tools and measurements can be put in place. Then we do not merely note the NAPLAN test but use the outcomes of the test more constructively to enable good teaching to occur. Across geographic areas where there are a number of schools, whether in local communities or large regional towns, we could do a lot more in terms of school performance by asking those schools that are performing well in tests what are they doing that enables their students to perform better in tests as opposed to a school three or four streets away. That is the second stage of NAPLAN: how do we use the results of NAPLAN to hone in on school performance? NAPLAN has now been around since 2008. I am pleased to say that today's report is supported by all senators involved in that report. That we are able to say, despite our differences, that we all believe it is an important diagnostic tool, augurs well for the ongoing success of NAPLAN. Certainly, the results need to be available much more quickly, and now that NAPLAN has moved to an online test there is no reason we cannot get those results back to schools as soon as possible.

The next stage for us is to ask: how do we take those tests and use them to improve student performance? How do we look at what is happening in a particular area or across the state or across states—which NAPLAN already does—compare like for like? Where we have really good pedagogy and good test results, then how do we share them? Education should not be occurring in a competitive environment. We want all students to succeed at school regardless of their background or where they live. The results of NAPLAN should be used to dig into why some students in some schools perform better at NAPLAN than others. How do we then bring everyone along with us—how we use those results to improve all students' performance.

Parents can measure where their child is performing against a national average and we can look at how a local school is performing against schools in similar areas and in similar circumstances. For me the next step needs to be: how do we take excellence and make sure it is shared right across the community? The other thing the committee has been at pains to stress was that NAPLAN in and of itself cannot improve student performance. It measures student performance, but actual improvement in student performance rests with quality teaching, quality teacher training and good pedagogical leadership in the school—where good principals are willing to look beyond their own school gate at the school that perhaps did better than them down the road in, say, in the area of literacy and investigate why that happened and what they can to make sure in the next round of NAPLAN they are doing as well as the other school.

The committee believes that at the micro level, the school level, but those results can be most effective and that is certainly where parents want NAPLAN to be effective and where the community wants to see those NAPLAN results analysed at school level and developed much more fully. There is no point in doing national testings if the results come back to schools and sit on the shelf collecting dust. That is not what we want to see. It is about improving school performance. I commend the report. (Time expired)