Dire NAPLAN Results Show 1 in 3 Failing Basic Literacy, Numeracy

Students in the library receive candy and red envelopes in a cultural celebration of the Lunar New Year at a school in New York City on Feb. 2, 2022. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

The latest NAPLAN results paint a dire picture of education in Australia, with one in three children failing to meet minimum standards for literacy and numeracy for the second year in a row.

Across the board, one in 10 students need extra support.

The results also show one in three Indigenous students as struggling, with one in four remote students and one in two very remote students needing more help.

Overall, Year 9 students showed the worst results, with 35.5 percent failing to reach minimum levels of proficiency.

NAPLAN, or the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, is an annual test of student skills in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 intended to assist parents, teachers, and governments in determining the best education needs and outcomes.

Minister for Education Jason Clare said the results showed a need for more support, as the Albanese government channels $16 billion (US$10.6 billion) into public schools as part of the next Better and Fairer Schools Agreement.

Clare proportioned blame for the results on social disadvantage.

“We have a good education system, but it can be a lot better and a lot fairer and that’s what these results again demonstrate,” he said.

“Your chances in life shouldn’t depend on your parents’ pay packet or the colour of your skin, but these results again show that’s still the case.”

Clare said measures in the next set of federal reforms would include phonics and numeracy checks, evidence-based teaching, and catch-up tutoring.

“There are no blank cheques here,” he said.

“I want to invest billions into our public schools and I want to make sure that money makes a difference to the kids who really need it.”

A ‘National Crisis’

Shadow education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said Australia was suffering from a national education “crisis,” adding that the Albanese government’s education reforms had failed.

Henderson said Australian children needed education that went back to basics in a common-sense curriculum, claiming a focus on activism had detracted from learning.

“It is shocking so many young Australians do not reach minimum standards of literacy and numeracy,” she said.

“Getting back to basics also means ridding the classroom of indoctrination and other activist causes.”

Funding Questioned

Henderson has previously criticised Labor’s National School Reform Agreement which provided an additional funding boost for education in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, something she said had created a “school funding war” among the states.

For Western Australia, that funding added up to an additional $777.4 million over five years, with an additional $737 million for the Northern Territory from 2025-29.

In March, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was evident that the Northern Territory would receive more funds per student than anywhere else, explaining that its students’ needs were the greatest.

Henderson said in a previous statement that a Coalition senate inquiry had recommended a national behaviour curriculum to improve learning in the classroom.

Accurate Data May Take Time

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA) released a statement saying NAPLAN results in 2024 had been similar to those in 2023.

ACARA said there were signs of strong performance from Australian students, but said students in non-urban areas faced challenges.

ACARA CEO Stephen Gniel said caution must be used in interpreting any trends in results this year because of a new measurement scale and proficiency levels only introduced last year.

“We have two years of data and, this year, a new cohort of students took part in the NAPLAN assessments,” he said in a statement.

“National data rarely shows any significant change over a single year.

“The trends in NAPLAN data are likely to take several years to emerge as they start to show differences from both the immediately preceding year and the base year of 2023.”

Gniel said there had been a number of takeaways from the 2024 results, however.

In reading, data showed strong results in 67 percent of students, with an increase in positive results noted between Years 3 and 5, before falling in Years 7 and 9.

The need for additional support in reading had also shown an increase in Years 7 and 9, despite seeing better results in Year 5.

Mathematics skills also showed a slight drop in Year 7, followed by a more significant drop in Year 9.

Learning Gap Widening

The Grattan Institute said Australia had 450,000 students across the nation who had not reached basic milestones in learning.

Educational program director Jordana Hunter laid out the reality of skills at levels that had not been reached.

For example, in Year 3 numeracy, students at an excellent level would be expected to know if someone was older who was born in 1988 or 1989, to calculate the number of minutes between 3:45 p.m. and 4 p.m., and to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide at a basic level.

Only 10 percent of kids have shown competence in these equations.

“[The 2024 NAPLAN] results also highlight the widening achievement gap as students progress through school,” Hunter said.

“In Year 3 reading, the gap between students whose parents didn’t finish school and those whose parents hold a bachelor degree or above is about two years of learning.

“By Year 9, this gap balloons to more than five years.”

The Grattan Institute says the government needs to set a long-term goal of 90 percent proficiency among students.

Additionally, as the deadline looms for signing up to the federal government’s latest funding arrangements, the institute is calling on states other than Western Australia and the Northern Territory to push for inclusion and commit to 10 percent improvement by 2030.

There are also calls for the government to carry out earlier and better screening, with Year 3 considered too late to start checking on student progress.