By Lucy Carroll
The NSW Department of Education has stripped key performance targets from its annual report, removing specific goals for lifting academic results, attendance and the number of public school students finishing year 12.
It is the first time in almost 20 years that education officials have failed to include achievement targets, many of which they had recently failed to meet, in the report.
The NSW Education Department has not published specific achievement targets in its latest annual report.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
The department, which runs one of the world’s largest public school systems, has previously published a suite of ambitious targets for boosting the proportion of students who feel a sense of belonging at school, as well as lifting attendance, HSC results and students finishing school.
Surveys released this year show that almost half of NSW public high school students feel like they do not belong at school, with girls more likely to struggle and feel disconnected. About a third of all public school students drop out of school before reaching year 12, last year’s figures show.
While targets have been published in annual reports since 2006, specific goals to lift students achieving in the top NAPLAN and HSC bands were introduced by the state government about a decade ago.
The department’s 2023-24 report, released last week, does not contain a single reference to NAPLAN, while also removing HSC performance data and targets to lift academic performance and close achievement gaps.
Grattan Institute education program director Jordana Hunter said system-level targets should be publicly available and reported on yearly to ensure transparency and accountability. Targets “make sure governments stay focused and committed to the tough reforms” needed to lift outcomes, she said.
“In the long term, the vast majority of students should hit the basic benchmarks in NAPLAN, and Australia should aim for a 15-percentage point improvement over the next 10 years on reading results,” she said.
One third of students this year failed to meet the proficient level in literacy and numeracy tests.
Recent annual reports have shown the department failed to reach its targets, sliding backwards in key areas, including students’ attitudes to school and attendance. The department has previously said it was working out how to stop the exodus of students before they reached year 12.
In 2022, only 66.5 per cent of NSW public school students finished high school, about 10 percentage points below the target.
The NSW Education Department has a $24 billion budget, more than 100,000 staff and almost 800,000 students.
A department spokesperson said system-wide improvement targets were “currently being finalised”, including targets for improvement in NAPLAN and HSC outcomes, which will be publicly reported on from next year, separate from the annual report.
“We have high expectations for achievement for all NSW students, with ambitious reading and numeracy improvement targets in place at every school,” they said.
Principals have long criticised the academic achievement targets as a narrow measure of success that fails to account for student complexity or improvements across multiple areas.
They pointed to sources such as the MySchool website to access individual school results. The national curriculum authority, ACARA, also publishes state-based data on attendance rates and the proportion of students finishing year 12.
Earlier this year, the department stopped setting top-band HSC and NAPLAN performance targets for every public school and instead gave principals the power to nominate their own reading and numeracy improvement measures.
Centre for Independent Studies education research fellow Trisha Jha said the department’s latest annual report was vastly different from the previous year’s and was “out of step” with Victoria and other major states.
“Victoria reports detailed NAPLAN and attendance goals. Not including targets is also not in line with what is happening federally,” she said, noting that the new Commonwealth-state funding agreement, which NSW has rejected, was linked to literacy and numeracy targets.
“Instead of rising to that occasion, it suggests they are going the other way. There is a conversation about data transparency that needs to be had. Including statewide targets for standardised testing, student engagement and attendance in annual reports is reasonable.”
Jha said the department had “big goals” in its new plan for public education and its move to explicit teaching, and “by doing all these things, you’d expect the benefits are reflected in results,” Jha said.
Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell said previous annual reports had clear, publicly available targets, including outcomes for Aboriginal students and post-school education and employment.
“This has all been scrapped, and there is no longer any reference to statewide targets nor any data available to see if our students are improving. This is extremely concerning,” she said.
The department’s latest annual report contains details of its plan for public education, including “advancing equitable outcomes and delivering outstanding teaching and learning”.
At the end of last year, NSW Education secretary Murat Dizdar called on schools to double down on the use of explicit instruction – in a bid to boost results and close the stark achievement gap.
“Our commitment is that every student learns, grows, and belongs in an equitable and outstanding education system,” the annual report read.
Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter here.