- Minister for Education
Victorian students continue to outperform other states and lead the nation in education with today's NAPLAN results confirming the Andrews Labor Government's Education State reforms are producing real results.
Victoria's primary schools achieved the best results in the country in seven out of 10 measures, up from 2018 when we led on four of the 10 measures.
Primary schools also improved on their own excellent results from 2018 on six out of 10 measures, including numeracy where we achieved higher average scores and levels of excellence than all other states and territories.
Nearly 45 per cent of Year 3 and 33 per cent of Year 5 students now achieve results in the top two bands, the best in the country. This is an improvement on last year's figures of 44 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.
In reading, nearly 60 per cent of Year 3 and more than 40 per cent of Year 5 students were in the top two bands - more than in any other jurisdiction in Year 3 and ahead of all other jurisdictions except the ACT in Year 5.
Importantly, the results show we are successfully addressing disadvantage by continuing to lift more primary students out of the bottom three bands in numeracy.
Victoria's secondary results also showed improvements in key areas. In the critical domains of reading, writing and numeracy, our Year 7 students are the best in the country - excluding the ACT - and have improved since last year.
We saw a significant increase in the number of Year 7 students achieving high levels of excellence. In numeracy, 36 per cent of Year 7 students achieved results in the top two bands compared to 31 per cent in 2018, while in reading 30.4 per cent of Year 7 students achieved results in the top two bands compared to 28.5 per cent in 2018.
These results are clear evidence that the Education State reforms are working. While these results are encouraging, we know there is more we need to do to lift Year 9 performance.
In results that were similar across the country, Year 9 students did not improve on last year's results in several domains. That is why the Labor Government will appoint a special principal advisory committee to immediately investigate options to improve the relevance of NAPLAN for Year 9 students.
This will include exploring ideas such as the introduction of a proficiency certificate and changing the year level the test is conducted to ensure the test is relevant to Year 9 students.
The Labor Government is already taking action to target improvement in Year 9 by investing $183 million for intensive literacy and numeracy teaching support to secondary students. This initiative started rolling out this year.
As noted by Minister for Education James Merlino
"Victorian students have again achieved excellent results in the 2019 NAPLAN tests, with our primary schools continuing to forge ahead and extend the gap between us and other states."
"We are making significant improvements across Years 3, 5 and 7, but we know we have more to do in Year 9 to ensure students see the relevance of NAPLAN and are better engaged."
