Opinion & Commentary
School litany of shame
With the May 2009 national literacy and numeracy tests only six months away, it is not too soon to focus on the reasons why more than half of the Northern Territory's Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 school children either did not sit or, if they sat did not pass, national minimum literacy and numeracy standards in 2008.
The most striking departure from national Australian NATPLAN 2008 results was that 20 per cent of Territory children did not sit the tests.
Another 35 per cent of Territory students failed to reach national minimum literacy and numeracy standards.
Children who did not sit the exams had such poor reading abilities, even in senior years, that there was no point in putting examination papers before them.
They could make nothing of them.
Australia wide, no-shows were about 4 per cent of students and failures were around 5 per cent -- a total 9 per cent of students.
In the NT the no-show and failure to pass combined was more than 50 per cent.
In mainstream schools in Darwin, Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy, a majority of enrolled children sat the tests and passed at minimum national standards. There are exceptional schools in remote areas, but in most Homeland Learning Centres, Community Education Centres and other remote schools 100 per cent of the children either did not sit the tests or failed.
The NT's insistence that the first four hours in all schools be taught in English is a response to the dire NATPLAN performance by remote schools. But it is not likely to be sufficient.
National minimum pass rates can't be achieved by merely teaching in English for four hours every morning. Children in the rest of Australia and mainstream centres in the NT learn in English all day.
Many also had the benefit of preschool in English to lay the foundations of literacy and numeracy. That is what is needed to pass.
The vocal opposition to four hours' teaching in English, and rearguard support for alleged bilingualism is a distraction designed to halt discussion about education failure in remote schools.
Early childhood is the most receptive time for learning foreign languages. Teaching only in indigenous languages in those years is not bilingualism.
Last weekend COAG agreed that greater transparency and accountability for the performance of our schools is essential to ensure that every Australian child receives the highest quality education.
All jurisdictions agreed to a new performance reporting framework, ``(that includes) national reporting on performance of individual schools to inform parents and carers and for evaluation by governments of school performance''.
The publication of 2008 NATPLAN results by school are particularly important in the Territory.
The Department of Education has surely had time to put together the NATPLAN results for 2008 that Education Minister Marion Scrymgour promised would be published.
Parents want to know how the schools their children attend compare to others.
Education policies cannot evolve without the availability of individual school data.
Indigenous students are less than 40 per cent of the Northern Territory total and some of these attend mainstream schools.
If the number of students not sitting the tests was 20 per cent for the NT as a whole, how high must the percentage be in remote schools -- more than 50 per cent?
We need to know how many children are not sitting tests in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Homeland Learning Centres and Community Education Centres.
Only two out of more than 50 Homeland Learning Centres are scheduled for transformation into schools in the 2008-9 budget. At this rate, it will take 26 years until the last Learning Centre becomes a mainstream school. Such a timetable is unacceptable.
Additional Commonwealth funding is likely to be required if children in remote settlements are to receive a mainstream education.
But Territory and Commonwealth funding is based on school enrolments.
The NT results show that focusing on enrolments is not sufficient to ensure that funds are well spent.
Attendance, and sitting and passing NAPLAN tests, should have a role in determining Territory and Commonwealth Government funding.
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes is a senior fellow of the Centre for Independent studies and Mark Hughes is an independent researcher.
