One-third of Australian students fail to meet literacy, numeracy expectations

Canberra, Aug 14 (IANS) One-third of Australian school students are not meeting basic literacy and numeracy expectations, national standardised testing has found.

The federal government released on Wednesday the results of the 2024 National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy tests, revealing that one in three students failed to meet baseline standards for reading and mathematics, Xinhua news agency reported.

Almost 1.3 million students in years three, five, seven and nine at more than 9,400 primary and secondary schools sat the annual test and were graded as either exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, developing, or in need of additional support, with the latter two representing a failure to meet baseline standards.

Ten per cent of students were identified as needing additional support to progress satisfactorily and 23 per cent were found to be developing. The testing found significant gaps in results between different student demographics.

Across every year group, female students outperformed their male counterparts in literacy while males generally performed better in numeracy testing.

In literacy and numeracy, one-third of Indigenous students were graded as in need of additional support compared to 8.6 per cent of non-Indigenous students in literacy and 7.7 per cent in numeracy.

Twenty-four per cent of students from very remote schools either exceeded or met literacy expectations compared to 70.7 per cent of students from major city schools.

Students with parents working in skilled professions consistently outperformed their counterparts with parents in unskilled professions.

Responding to the results, Education Minister Jason Clare said that they show serious reform is needed to build a better and fairer school education system.

“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,” he said in a statement.

Clare is currently in negotiations with his state and territory counterparts over a new funding deal for public schools.

In July, he issued an ultimatum to state and territory education ministers giving them until September to sign on to a new agreement that would link 16 billion Australian dollars ($10.6 billion) in funding for schools over 10 years to reforms aimed at lifting students’ performance.

–IANS

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