Opinion & Commentary
NAPLAN tests show the Indigenous gap
National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) 2010 tests start today. The test results and the MySchool website enable us to check progress on Mr Rudd's promise to 'halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievement for Indigenous children by 2018'.
The NAPLAN 2009 tests show three clear results:
■ Very few of some 20,000 Indigenous students in remote Indigenous schools - about 15% of all Indigenous students - are achieving minimum national standards. Their failure rates range between 60% and 70%, while for non-Indigenous students they are about 10%.
■ Some 40,000 Indigenous students from welfare-dependent backgrounds attend mainstream schools in the southern states, including the Newcastle Region. Their failure rates are also higher - about 25% - than for non-Indigenous students.
■ The majority of Indigenous students - some 90,000 - achieve minimum national standards like most non-Indigenous students.
As the majority of Indigenous students achieve the standard, the reason for others failing is not ethnic in origin. The gap is between Indigenous students who fail, and students - both Indigenous and non-Indigenous - who pass.
NAPLAN tests and the MySchool.edu.au website provide an evidence base for education policies. Parents can compare schools, and education providers can see where they need to fix problems.
The 60% of Indigenous students meeting the NAPLAN standard mirrors the 60% of Indigenous families that are in the workforce. Like other Australians, they own, are buying, or commercially renting their homes. Their children go to school, and many go on to further education. More than 70,000 Indigenous students are enrolled in vocational courses; 1500 of them at the diploma level, and about 10,000 enrolled in universities.
NSW remained in the lead with Victoria on NAPLAN results. In September 2009 NSW became the first state to release literacy teaching guidelines that instructed teachers to teach children the sounds of letters and how to blend and manipulate sounds to form words. The 2011 roll-out of the new national curriculum with its emphasis on literacy and numeracy gives Indigenous schools an opportunity to replace dumbed-down curriculums, and focus on rigorous classroom teaching.
Yet a significant minority of Indigenous students that did not reach minimum standards are in mainstream schools in Sydney, Newcastle and other NSW towns, NAPLAN reports suggest that students from welfare-dependent communities lag behind other Australian students, and that Indigenous welfare students do particularly badly. Low expectations of Indigenous students' achievement - by schools and teachers, by parents and by the students themselves - are a major cause of poor performance.
Teachers are the key to enabling Indigenous students to catch up. Research on initiatives to transform failing Indigenous schools shows that competent teachers in front of classes are the principal determinants of good education. Education departments have spent too many resources on special programs that clutter up teachers' times with bureaucratic requirements and cut into their teaching time. Principals need greater autonomy. Research suggests longer hours are required, including preschool classes and supervised after-school homework. Dedicated teachers prepared to take on additional tasks have to be rewarded.
The major Indigenous education problems are in remote schools attended mainly by Indigenous students. There are still 40 Homeland Learning Centres in the Northern Territory that do not have qualified teachers in front of classes every day. Some are still housed in unlined corrugated iron sheds. Many students leave these centres unable to read, write and count. There is an accumulation of about 10,000 illiterate and non-numerate young men and women in the Northern Territory who cannot get jobs. The Northern Territory has no plans to turn these centres into schools with full-time teachers.
The emphasis on improving Indigenous education has been weakening. In 1999 the government target was to fix all the problems by 2002. Now it is to fix half the problems by 2018. Mr Rudd's halving the gap by 2018 would still leave Indigenous failure gaps of 20% in NSW. In the Northern Territory, the difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous performance would still be as high as 40%. Such targets, and a 10-year timetable, are surely not acceptable. By 2018 differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students should be a distant memory.
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes is a senior fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies and Mark Hughes is an independent researcher.
