NAPLAN test fiasco ‘makes it invalid’, say teachers’ unions

The Education Minister has been accused of “losing control of his portfolio”, as it tries to prove the validity of the latest NAPLAN.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Picture: Keri Megelus

Education Minister Simon Birm­ingham has been accused of “losing control of his portfolio” as the national school testing authority scrambles to prove the latest ­NAPLAN test results are valid and the data is not compromised.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority confirmed last night that it could take weeks for the 2018 ­NAPLAN results to be released publicly while “extra ­attention” was given to “reviewing the data and how results compare between the paper and online testing”.

The statement followed a meeting in Canberra of education officials, who discussed concerns that the data collated from students who sat the new online test could not accurately be compared with those who took pen-and-paper tests. Earlier in the day, ACARA chief executive Robert Randall denied that NAPLAN results, usually released in the first week of August, had been delayed, insisting they would be made available “within coming days”.

The Australian Education Union called for the online test to be halted and the broader testing regime to be independently reviewed. Its national president, Correna Haythorpe, said she took little comfort from the comments given ACARA’s previous assurance it had undertaken extensive research to ensure comparability of NAPLAN online.

For the first time this year, ­almost 193,000 students from 1285 schools sat NAPLAN online, representing up to 20 per cent of the students from Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 ­ who sat the test. Stakeholders have raised concerns about the comparability of the data, given differences between the testing methods. The online version employs tailored testing, automatically adapting the questions to student performance.

According to the ABC, a document put before a recent meeting of the Australian Education Senior Officials Committee suggested ACARA had been seeking advice on whether this year’s ­NAPLAN data would be statistically comparable. ACARA also acknowledged it faced potential “reputational risk” over the issue.

Ms Haythorpe said ACARA and the minister “should ’fess up about what’s going on”.

“(Senator) Birmingham is fast losing control of his portfolio,” she said. “He engages in no consultation with the teaching profession, his reform agenda is delivered on the hop, and the ­results are quite clear with respect to NAPLAN online.”

NSW Teachers Federation president Maurie Mulheron said he understood that as yet, this year’s data did not enable comparisons between schools, schooling systems and across states. ACARA was in the process of trying to create a “new algorithm to manipulate the data”, he said.

“That means right across the country no education department, no government … can use the data for any serious purpose. We believe the 2018 NAPLAN is invalid.”

Neither ACARA nor Senator Birmingham would provide details of yesterday’s meeting, other than to say the results would be “ready to be released this month”. Senator Birmingham said: “Australians should see through the scare campaign being peddled by the union as little more than cheap opportunism from those who have always opposed parents receiving transparent and accountable information.”