Education and Training Minister Sue Ellery has rejected Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan’s criticism of Western Australia’s decision to use the highest NAPLAN score, which is in the best interests of WA students.
In Western Australia students who had to re-sit NAPLAN will have their highest score reported, regardless of whether that was achieved in the first or second test. Mr Tehan has written to the Minister saying it was disappointing WA had decided to do this.
Once WA realised they had two sets of data, and the Minister was shown clear examples that there were significant differences between the two test results, it would have been irresponsible to use the earlier decision to only count the second test result.
The information provided by the WA School Curriculum and Standards Authority showed examples of many students with dramatically worse outcomes between the two tests.
No Western Australian student should be disadvantaged because of the technical issues during the NAPLAN writing tests.
In May this year, 40,000 WA students had their NAPLAN writing tests disrupted by technical problems with the online NAPLAN platform.
As stated by Education and Training Minister Sue Ellery:
“No student should be disadvantaged by the technical issues experienced this year.
“Once we realised we had two sets of data, and I was shown clear examples that there were significant differences between the two test results, it would have been irresponsible to use the earlier decision to only count the second test result.
“In WA 17,000 students had to re-sit the writing tests which represents 20 per cent of WA’s NAPLAN population, which is a much higher percentage than the reported national figure of five per cent.
“The integrity of NAPLAN is brought into question if parents are provided with information that clearly does not reflect their child’s proficiency.
“There’s no reason ACARA can’t put a note on the results saying WA used the best result of the two tests so you can’t compare WA to other States.”
Minister’s office – 6552 5700
