The Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) has released its first report into National Partnership Agreement on Literacy and Numeracy, providing an assessment of achievement against targets agreed between the Commonwealth, and the States and Territories.

 

The total funding under this National partnership is $540 million from 2008­­–09 to 2011–12, including reward payments of $350 million available in the last two years.

 

The report comes after the Queensland Government received an ‘A’ rating for it’s education results, entitling the state to the first $48.5 reward package.

 

The COAG Reform Council has the role of assessing and publicly reporting the achievement of agreed performance benchmarks, before Commonwealth payments are made to States and Territories to reward improvements in student literacy and numeracy achievement.

 

The priority areas for reform identified by the COAG Reform Council are:

  • effective and evidenced-based teaching of literacy and numeracy
  • strong school leadership and whole school engagement with literacy and numeracy
  • monitoring student and school literacy and numeracy performance to identify where support is needed (COAG 2008e, cl. 6).

 

The COAG Reform Council uses a three tiered goal system as follows:

 

A) The performance benchmark has been achieved.

B) The performance benchmark has been only partially achieved.

C) No progress has been made towards the performance benchmark.

 

OR

 

No performance information was provided by the data collation body.

 

The results for each state and territory published by the COAG Reform Council are as follows:

 

New South Wales

New South Wales had a total of 12 assessments. The council has reported 11 ‘A’ assessments and 1 ‘B’ assessment. 


Victoria

Victoria had a total of 34 assessments. The council has reported 6 ‘A’ assessments, 11 ‘B’ assessments and 17 ‘C’ assessments.


Queensland

Queensland had a total of 20 assessments and the council has reported 20 ‘A’ assessments.


Western Australia

Western Australia had a total of 29 assessments. The council has reported 19 ‘A’ assessments, 2 ‘B’ assessments and 8 ‘C’ assessments.


South Australia

South Australia had a total of 40 assessments. The council has reported 31 ‘A’ assessments, 1 ‘B’ assessment and 8 ‘C’ assessments.


Tasmania

Tasmania had a total of 18 assessments. The council has reported 13 ‘A’ assessments, 2 ‘B’ assessments and 3 ‘C’ assessments.


Australian Capital Territory

The Australian Capital Territory had a total of 29 assessments. The council has reported 24 ‘A’ assessments, 3 ‘B’ assessments and 2 ‘C’ assessments.


Northern Territory

The Northern Territory had a total of 30 assessments. The council has reported 13 ‘A’ assessments, 9 ‘B’ assessment and 8 ‘C’ assessments.

 

The full report and executive summery can be found on the COAG website: http://www.coagreformcouncil.gov.au/reports/education.cfm