Queensland gets gold star for NAPLAN participation amid cyclone chaos

Queensland students have received a gold star from a national education authority for the greatest improvement in NAPLAN participation rates, despite uptake remaining the lowest of any state.

With Cyclone Alfred tearing a path through the 2025 testing period, forcing affected south-east schools to push back testing by up to four days, almost 260,000 students in years 3, 5, 7, and 9 ended up sitting the nationwide standardised tests.

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive Stephen Gniel said Queensland’s spike in participation rates was “a testament to the efforts of its education community”.

While a cyclone bore down on the state’s south-east, a record number of students sat NAPLAN.

“When you consider [the cyclone], the fact that Queensland achieved its highest participation rate across all year levels since 2019, at 89.7 per cent, is an impressive achievement,” he said.

Gniel said national participation rates had largely rebounded to pre-COVID levels, with 93.8 per cent of students making at least one test attempt – the highest rate since 2017.

Despite an overall 2.4 percentage point increase in average participation rates from 2024 to 2025, Queensland remained the only state with an overall participation rate below 90 per cent.

The number of year 9 students in Queensland sitting the test was even lower, with about two in every 10 students skipping NAPLAN, however this was an increase on the state’s all-time low in 2022.

The Northern Territory recorded the lowest participation rate of all Australian states and territories, but had the highest proportion of students in regional, remote, or very remote locations.

Queensland’s participation has been low for years, with the Queensland Teachers’ Union calling for NAPLAN to be either overhauled or scrapped.

Its president, Cresta Richardson, said NAPLAN, which assesses literacy and numeracy, was not a reliable benchmark.

“NAPLAN is an out-of-date extra burden that delivers no benefit to students or teachers and school leaders,” Richardson said.

“Queensland currently has a severe teacher shortage: in simple terms, not enough qualified people to cover the necessary workload.”

Queensland students that did sit the test ranked low compared to most other mainland states – on par with South Australia – but their performance was up slightly on 2024.

Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek congratulated students and schools for the participation uptick, adding the state government “unashamedly backs NAPLAN”.

“We will continue to back our teachers to give them more time in the classroom delivering a world-class education to students,” he said.

Queensland students achieved their strongest results in writing in years 3 and 9, spelling in year 7 – followed closely by numeracy – and grammar and punctuation in year 5.

In each year level’s strongest subject, between half and two-thirds of Queensland students achieved a result in the “strong” or “exceeding” categories.

Nationally, girls ranked slightly better than boys overall, and outperformed them in literacy across all year levels.

However, boys were more likely to achieve above-average results – falling within the “strong” and “exceeding” bands – in numeracy.

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