Assessments in Australia

From early childhood through to late adolescence, education and pathways to employment have a strong influence on the future outcomes of children and young people.¹
The measures reported here are aimed at highlighting the educational journey for children and young people.
The companion report  contains information about programs which are effective in improving the wellbeing of children and young people in the Education domain.

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1Participation in pre-compulsory education

• Children developmentally vulnerable on entering school

• Students achieving at or above national minimum standards (NAPLAN)

  • Why this measure has been included

    Literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills for operating in the modern world.  Getting the best start for a child includes ensuring that they have grounding in these important skills.
    Commencing in 2008, all students in Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are tested annually using a common assessment tool under the National Assessment Program — Literary and Numeracy (NAPLAN).  This tool is administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
    

    What is this measure?

    This measure reports on the percentages of children and young people who achieve at or above the national minimum standards for achievement. The data used in this measure is the NAPLAN test results for students in each year group by state and territory. Data ¹on the individual results of female, male, Aboriginal and language background other than English (LBOTE) students in WA is also included. show the percentage of students who are achieving at or above the national minimum standard for reading, writing, and numeracy for 2010 show the percentage of students in WA achieving at or above the national minimum standard for reading and numeracy by gender, Aboriginal status and LBOTE for the period 2008 to 2 WA compared against the Australian average and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average in the three subjects. 

    Commentary

    The NAPLAN results for 2010 show that a smaller percentage of WA students achieve the national minimum standard than in Australia as a whole. This applies to the subject areas reading, writing and numeracy² in all assessed year groups The NAPLAN results in reading and numeracy for female, male, Aboriginal and LBOTE students in WA show a largely consistent pattern across all tested subject areas for 2010 with the following characteristics:
    
    • A greater percentage of female students than male students achieve at or above the national minimum standard in all subject areas and year groups except in numeracy in Year 9.
    • A significantly smaller percentage of Aboriginal students than all students achieve at or above the national minimum standard in all subject areas and year groups.
    • A smaller percentage of LBOTE students than all students achieve at or above the national minimum standard in all subject areas and year groups.
    For international comparison, Australia participates in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which assesses a representative sample of 15 year-old students across most industrialised countries for reading, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. The results allow for comparison of Australian and WA results against participant countries.
    In 2009 the study showed that Australia performed significantly above the OECD average in all areas. WA performed slightly better than the Australian average in all areas. For reading literacy WA was the highest and for mathematical and scientific literacy the second highest.³WA and Australia were both consistently in the top quarter of participating countries.
    There is a similar result in the subject areas spelling and grammar and punctuation
    
    References

    
    Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth 2008, The Wellbeing of Young Australians:  Report Card, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, p. 6.