Queensland students complete online NAPLAN tests

More than a million students across the country have wrapped up the first NAPLAN tests to be fully online, with Queensland managing to avoid some major outages that affected other states.

More than a million students across the country have wrapped up the first NAPLAN tests to be fully online, with the Sunshine State managing to avoid any major outages.

While other states experienced a few instances of significant IT issues, about 279,000 year 3, 5, 7 and 9 Queensland students managed to complete their numeracy and literacy tests with minimal disruptions.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive David de Carvalho said transitioning NAPLAN online for all schools was a “large-scale multifaceted IT project involving multiple organisations”.

“Making the final leap from paper to online was a significant effort and I thank all the students, teachers, schools, states and territories who worked hard to make it a success,” he said, adding “the technology and logistics are highly complex”.

ACARA chief executive officer David de Carvalho.

Increased absences of students and teachers during the NAPLAN period due to Covid also made this year’s tests “uniquely challenging”, with the Queensland Teachers’ Union even pushing for the tests to be scrapped, as they were in 2020.

“It is testament to the hard work of education authorities in each state who worked collaboratively with their schools to support students and manage any issues that arose that it went so well,” Mr de Carvalho said.

This year also marked the final time the national standardised testing would be held in May, with students to jump into the testing period in March in Term 1 from 2023, with the goal for teachers and parents to have access to students’ results earlier in the school year.