Experts want Australia to dump NAPLAN and replace it with more dynamic tests. 

The Gonski Institute for Education says a national online library of tests and questions should be created, replacing NAPLAN with a system that allows teachers to draw on the questions they want. 

The group says that this would allow results to be turned around quickly, so students get more useful feedback.

The institute imagines a system in which students’ results are compared with national benchmarks and shared with parents, but does not allow comparison of schools and no annual, compulsory test. 

The assessment library idea is for the whole curriculum, rather than just literacy and numeracy.

NAPLAN is a national literacy and numeracy test sat by all year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students. The results take months to process, and are posted for comparison on the government’s My School website.

Educators have argued that NAPLAN causes unnecessary stress for students, and because the results take so long to come back, offer little practical use.

Last year, NAPLAN tests were cancelled due to COVID-19. This allowed NSW to trial a new system of voluntary online ‘check-in’ tests for teachers to use at their discretion. 

The system put forth by the Gonski Institute is similar to this approach. 

The suggestion came after reviewing international case studies from the leading education systems in Canada, Scotland, Singapore and Finland to further inform the recommendations for a new assessment system.

“International experience suggests that many leading education systems are shifting away from high-stakes census-based tests towards assessment systems that integrate sample-based tests used for policy-making purposes and teacher-led assessments to support teaching and learning. This gives more accurate information about educational progress and issues that require improvement,” says Professor Pasi Sahlberg, Professor of Education at UNSW Sydney.

The report is available in PDF form - Putting Students First: Moving on from NAPLAN to a new educational assessment system.