NAPLAN Results: Literacy and numeracy skills stagnant for years among Australian students

NAPLAN results released on Wednesday have shown that Australian primary education has remained stagnant for the past 7 years, since 2008 when the national testing was first introduced.

Literacy and numeracy skills of primary schools in Australia have not showed any signs of progress during these years, except in Queensland and Western Australia, where there has been some significant improvements, according to NAPLAN results.

According to the results, none of the age groups, have shown any significant improvement in spelling, grammar/punctuation or numeracy since 2014, whereas the writing skills of students belonging to the years group 7 and 9, have deteriorated considerably.

"Literacy and numeracy are the foundations of learning at and beyond school," Mr Randall said in a statement,” Robert Randall, the head of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said in a statement. "If student knowledge, skills and understanding are not improving in these areas, it is a cause for reflection."

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has said that the focus should be on the coalition’s four pillars of education - teacher quality, curriculum, parental engagement and school autonomy - in order to improve the standards of education in Australia.

The Guardian reported that in Queensland, even though the results have improved in 16 out of 20 tests, the students are still lagging behind the national average on a yearly basis. Kate Jones, the Education Minister of Queensland said that the state was at the bottom when the tests began, but it has improved significantly over the years due to additional funding, introduction of prep year, and lifting year 7 to high school.

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