The new NAPLAN results make for grim reading

About one in three students fell short of the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) proficiency benchmark. That’s about 450,000 students across the country who have not made sufficient progress in literacy and numeracy: skills that are crucial for their wellbeing and their future.

The problems are persistent – this year’s results are no better than last year’s. The problems are also everywhere – in every state and territory, at least 30 per cent of students fall below the proficiency benchmark on average across year levels and tests.

Excellence remains elusive too. In year 3 numeracy, for example, only 10 per cent of students reached the top level. At this level, students can generally compare four-digit numbers (e.g. Who is older: someone born in 1988 or 1998?), calculate time durations (e.g. How many minutes are there between 3.45pm and 4pm?), and use all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

The NAPLAN results also lay bare stark inequities within our education system. Indigenous students are twice as likely to fall short of proficiency benchmarks as their non-Indigenous peers. In remote schools, nearly 60 per cent of students on average failed to meet the benchmark.

Today’s results also highlight the widening achievement gap as students progress through school. 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.

This vast gap creates big challenges for teachers, and leaves struggling students with little hope of catching up. Australia must turn this around.

Here are three things governments should do now.

First, Australia needs to set a long-term goal of 90 per cent of students reaching proficiency. Research shows that with high-quality teaching and support, almost all students can learn to read proficiently. There’s good reason to believe this goal is achievable for numeracy as well.

It is simply too late to wait until year 3 to find out that one in three students is not on track.

The federal education minister has called for a 10 per cent improvement in student proficiency in each state and territory by 2030 as part of a new funding agreement. So far, only Western Australia and the Northern Territory have signed up. The other states and territories should commit to the 10 per cent improvement target as an interim target, on the way to the long-term goal of 90 per cent proficiency.

Second, governments need to insist on earlier and better screening of student progress in reading and numeracy. It is simply too late to wait until year 3 to find out that one in three students is not on track. Struggling students need to be identified early and offered immediate help, to prevent years of academic challenges. Governments should introduce mandatory screening of all students in year 1. Students who fall short of the benchmark level should be provided with intensive catch-up support, and be screened again in year 2.

Third, governments should commit to boosting the quality of the curriculum that is taught in classrooms. NAPLAN assesses students’ applied thinking, which relies heavily on students’ vocabulary and knowledge of a broad range of topics. One of the best ways to set students up for success is to ensure schools are using high-quality curriculum materials that build knowledge logically across each year of school and across different subjects.

Unfortunately, a knowledge-rich and carefully sequenced classroom curriculum is not the norm in Australia, particularly in primary schools. A Grattan Institute survey in 2022 of more than 2000 teachers found that nearly half attempt to create high-quality classroom curriculum materials on their own, despite most reporting that they have too little time to do this well.

Sorting through curriculum materials created by governments or commercial providers is not easy, either, especially when savvy marketing can obscure whether the materials reflect the evidence base on how students learn best.

Governments should support the establishment of an independent curriculum quality assurance body to help schools make better choices about classroom curriculum materials, and ensure that school reviews assess whether schools are using high-quality curriculum materials in the classroom.

The 2024 NAPLAN results are a wake-up call. Education ministers across the country must act swiftly to prevent more students falling through the cracks.