NAPLAN statistics thrown into chaos, release of data delayed by participation drop

NAPLAN participation rates took such a drastic dive the national curriculum body has been unable to “confidently” release any data trends, blaming Covid, flu and floods.

NAPLAN participation rates took such a drastic dive the national curriculum body has been unable to “confidently” release any trends shown in the data, blaming Covid, flu and floods.

While individual student reports will be released to parents in “a couple of weeks”, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment Reporting Authority was unable to release its summary findings, normally released in August annually.

It means the long-term national and jurisdictional trends will be released later this year due to “lower than usual student participation rates”.

Journalists were invited for a media “briefing” on the assumption there would be a release of annual summary data, however it quickly turned fiery.

The release or “non-release” of data triggered an apology from ACARA chief executive David de Carvalho at the close of the briefing.

“We are conscious of the release of a summary report, or the non-release and we are sorry if we got that wrong,” Mr de Carvalho said.

St Paul’s School students Ariana Davari, Evie Miller, Cameron Fletcher and Max Blakey getting ready for NAPLAN earlier this year. Picture: Josh Woning

Mr de Carvalho said there was an “unprecedented drop in participation rates due to the pandemic, floods and flu”.

“We need to look closely at jurisdictional level trends in particular to understand whether any change is due to overall achievement level or to the particular groups of students who were absent through testing, whether from lower or higher performing cohorts,” Mr de Carvalho said in a statement.

Mr De Carvalho said there had been challenges of staffing which also resulted in the historically-low participation rates.

“The lower than usual participation rate means closer analysis of jurisdictional level results is required using student background information, once that information is fully checked and cleared by state and territory education authorities,” he said.

“NAPLAN is one of the only national measures available into the effects of the pandemic on schooling, and so taking the time to investigate the data more closely is important.”

Results at the individual student and school level are not affected by the participation rates, and parents and schools will be receiving those results over the next few weeks.

ACARA was unable to provide a state-by-state breakdown of participation results.

“We are being conservative. We believe with an unprecedented non-participation any statement we make now could change when they report is released,” ACARA executive director Russell Dyer said.

“It’s why we are holding back on the summary report.”

Overall, 1.2 million students sat the test, completing 4.3 million test papers.

Last year, there were about 274,000 Queensland students in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 to sit the tests, with about 180,000 taking them online.

NAPLAN 2022 national participation rates compared to NAPLAN 2021

• Participation rates decreased by one to two percentage points in primary schools and by two to three percentage points in secondary schools since 2021

• Participation rates ranged from 85 per cent (Year 9 numeracy) to 95 per cent (Year 5 reading)

• Year 9 participation rates were below the technical data standard of 90 per cent for all domains