Queensland students fail every Government target

AN extraordinary State Government data dump late on Friday has revealed an alarming snapshot of student performance outcomes in Queensland schools.

QUEENSLAND students fell short of every Government target set for reading, writing and numeracy last year, according to the Education Department’s annual report.

The figures, buried among 75 reports the State Government released in an extraordinary data dump late Friday, showed student performance outcomes fell short of every target set by Queensland Education in the 2017/18 financial year.

STATE DEFENDS DUMPING 75 REPORTS LATE ON FRIDAY

The largest gaps were in reading outcomes, with the number of students at or above the national minimum standard in the Year 9 indigenous cohort siting at 45.7 per cent, 23.3 per cent below target; writing levels for all Year 9 students were at 69.3 per cent, 16.7 per cent below target; and Year 7 indigenous writing outcomes at 63.1 per cent, 14.9 per cent below target.

A spokeswoman for Education Minister Grace Grace said the Government was working hard to ensure kids were getting a “world class education”.

“This year, Queensland students returned their best ever NAPLAN results,” she said.

“Queensland students have shown the strongest improvement of any state in the country, which shows our record investment in education is delivering results.”

The report also revealed a record number of Queensland high school graduates still weren’t working or studying six months after they finished Year 12.

Twelve per cent of recent grads reported not being in work or studying and participation rates in university degrees and a range of vocational education certificates fell for the third year in a row.

“Labor’s Black Friday dump shows that Annastacia Palaszczuk is letting down our schools kids,” LNP shadow education minister Jarrod Bleijie said.

“No wonder Labor infamously dumped these reports in the dead of night with the education report showing we are not hitting any reading, writing or numeracy benchmarks. In fact, we are not even close.”