Editorial: NAPLAN results present challenge for Qld education

The last time he was education minister, John-Paul Langbroek set a NAPLAN standard. Queensland has fallen short, writes the editor.

Despite what critics say, the benefits of NAPLAN testing are significant.

It’s that time of year, when the NAPLAN results for Queensland’s schools are released. And always, reaction will be mixed.

Inevitably, any performance ranking of schools will produce different responses.

Schools and parents whose students and children did well, will celebrate and others – parents whose children didn’t do well and, historically, the Queensland Teachers Union, will continue to argue for NAPLAN – the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy – to be scrapped.

NAPLAN has attracted such divergent views since it was introduced in 2008 to test schoolchildren across the country in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in literacy and mathematics.

Critics make some reasonable points, among them that one-off exams are no real measure of a child’s overall ability.

And protective parents understandably object to a system they see as doing little more than making their children anxious.

The union argues teachers’ time and school resources would be better used actually teaching children rather than preparing them for national tests.

But the benefits of NAPLAN testing are significant. For a start, they help governments identify communities where more money and effort could be invested to improve overall outcomes.

NAPLAN testing also reveals overall trends, which is surely important information for education planners trying to make sure our children are as well equipped as possible for the future.

Without NAPLAN, we might not know that Queensland children have in fact been falling behind in spelling and reading skills.

John-Paul Langbroek has resumed his role as LNP education minister.

All Queensland students in the each of the test grades of 3, 5, 7 and 9 received lower results in reading and spelling in the 2024 NAPLAN test than the year before, results released earlier this year revealed.

The figures also showed more than half of Queensland’s students who took NAPLAN needed additional assistance in writing, with 56.3 per cent below the standard they should be for their year level. 

Queensland’s Year 3 cohort received the second-worst reading score in the country, behind Northern Territory.

These are concerning results, which whatever the QTU might argue, would not have been known without NAPLAN.

If nothing else, it gives the LNP’s new Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek a new mission – to lift Queensland’s NAPLAN rankings.

The last time he was state education minister, in premier Campbell Newman’s government, Mr Langbroek issued a media statement in 2014 with the headline “Great results for Queensland in NAPLAN tests”.

He was celebrating the fact that Queensland students had recorded their best results in seven years, but he was also definitely finding the silver lining.

Queensland’s successes in 2014 were by any definition modest – ranking fourth in the proportion of students achieving the national standard in Years 3 and 5, “with the exception of writing”.

Mr Langbroek declared at the time that the goal was for Queensland to be one of the
top-performing states by 2020.

That clearly hasn’t happened, but thanks to the NAPLAN process, we at least have some idea of the size of the challenge ahead.

RATINGS DOWNGRADE LABOR’S LEGACY

The LNP has inherited many economic headaches from their Labor predecessors – and made plenty of noise about it – but they are completely justified to bleat all they want about the likely change to the state’s credit rating.

As revealed exclusively in The Courier-Mail today, Treasurer David Janetzki has received advice from Treasury and global ratings agency S&P that Queensland is set to lose its strong AA+ credit rating.

It’s been 15 years since our last ratings cut, and another downgrading would put us below economic wet blankets Tasmania and South Australia.

As Mr Janetzki will say today in a speech to British Chamber of Commerce, the blame is clearly on the uncontrolled spending of the previous government.

“We have inherited a weakened position, following the flagrant spending and debt settings of the previous government,” he will say.

“Queensland’s debt path is on track to reach $171.987bn in 2027-28, with interest repayments of $7.733bn.”

And all this is despite the rivers of gold from coal royalties that have been flowing into the state coffers since 2022.

That windfall, elevated by record-high coal prices, was not used to pay down debt, despite what must have been an obviously precarious economic position.

Instead it was thrown at myriad “cost of living” initiatives designed to win votes.

Now it is incumbent on Mr Janetzki to fix up this mess.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here