NT’s poor NAPLAN 2023 report card revealed

The NT government is looking to boost the territory’s report card following the NAPLAN 2023 results. See the data breakdown and vote in our poll.

NT students’ underperformance is concerning but plans are in place to improve the Territory’s report card.

Education Minister Eva Lawler said shifting NAPLAN’s testing time from May to March meant teachers could get an idea of which students need “additional support” earlier and could adjust their lesson plans accordingly.

It comes as 35 per cent of NT students fall into the lowest NAPLAN performance band for 2023.

Education Department deputy chief executive Saeed Amin said there were “strong reasons” for the Territory’s underperformance.

“Fifty per cent of our students live in remote or very remote (areas) compared to 2 per cent nationally, and we also have twice as many students in the lowest quartile of social-economic advantage compared to the rest of Australia,” Mr Amin said.

“That means our results are always going to be a little bit behind the rest of the states.”

But the Territory’s demographic and socio-economic disadvantages do not mean there is no hope.

Education Minister Eva Lawler and Education Department deputy chief executive Saeed Amin said NT students' NAPLAN 2023 results were concerning but had a plan to improve the Territory's report card. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Education Minister Eva Lawler said additional support for underperforming students looks different for every child.

She said support could come down to small, group intensive programs for particular students, additional teaching staff, or even healthcare.

“Does it also indicate that they might need some further assessments or testing? Do they need their eyes tested, their hearing tested?” she said.

“Particularly in Year 3, it’s really important because it’s early enough then for schools to go, ‘we need to actually look at what we’re doing with this child’.”

Ms Lawler said a fairer education system across Australia was also on the cards.

A new system would put remote and regional schools on equal footing with urban schools that typically produced higher academic results.

“We need to make sure we see equity and fairness across the schools in Australia,” Ms Lawler said.

“When we see a remote school like Papunya, Yuendumu, Numbulwar, when we see our remote schools funded as much as a private school on the East Coast – your Knox, Geelong Grammar, all of those – we will see fairness and equity in education in Australia.”

Ms Lawler said one of the first steps to driving equitable education outcomes for remote students was increased funding.

The former teacher and principal was optimistic regarding her lobbying efforts to the federal government, citing funding that has already “come through for Central Australia”.

“I met with Jason Clare... he understands the situation in the Northern Territory,” she said.

“If we are to provide additional funding to schools, we do need to look at hitting the mark around that, where our students need it most – so our low socio-economic, rural and remote schools.”

NAPLAN 2023: Territory students’ major underperformance revealed

More than half of Territory school students are underperforming academically, this year’s NAPLAN results have revealed.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority unveiled the major assessment program’s preliminary results on Wednesday, in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy.

This year’s results showed an average of 57.8 per cent of NT kids in Years 3-9 need additional academic support or are “developing”.

Just 6.5 per cent of the same cohort, on average, are “exceeding”.

When compared to other regions, the Territory performed well below the national average in all categories.

The biggest disparity was in Year 3 spelling, with NT students scoring 88.5 points lower than the national average.

Year 9 spelling students came closest to meeting the national benchmark, scoring just 58.9 points lower than the Australian average.

This year’s NAPLAN results found one in 10 students across the country need additional support to meet academic expectations.

It comes as the assessment program’s goalposts also shifted this year.

“With expectations set at a higher level than in previous years, the new reporting is

showing those areas where we need to focus our efforts on supporting more students to meet

expectations and succeed,” ACARA chief executive David de Carvalho said.

“The results also continue to highlight the educational disparities of students from non-urban areas, Indigenous Australian heritage and those with low socio-educational backgrounds.”

But this year’s results leave schools’ academic progress shrouded in ambiguity as NAPLAN’s time series is reset from 2023.

This year’s data will only be comparable with future years, starting next year.

It comes as an independent NAPLAN review recommended changes to the test’s measurement scale, making this year’s data incomparable with previous years.

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