Almost 15 per cent of Australian year 9 boys don't meet the national minimum achievement standard for reading — the highest proportion ever, according to the latest national NAPLAN test results.
Experts have described the latest data — breaking down the COVID cohort's performance in this year's standardised literacy and numeracy assessments — as a "mixed bag", showing no overall decline in learning.
The curriculum authority, ACARA, said despite a dip in year 9 spelling results, and concerns around year 9 boys' reading ability, long-term trends over the past 15 years showed students' results had broadly stayed the same or improved.
However, Grattan Institute Education Program Director Jordana Hunter said while the results showed COVID disruptions have not had the dire academic impact many feared, she worried about an overall slip in maths results since before the pandemic.
"Right across the board in all different states and territories and across different year levels, those numeracy results are quite a bit down on where they were in those pre-pandemic years," Dr Hunter said.
She said though COVID disruptions may have contributed, it was hard to tell for sure. The shortage of maths teachers nationally could also have had an impact, she said.
Dr Hunter said the decline in year 9 reading, particularly among boys, also demanded policy-makers' attention.
Just 86.5 per cent of year 9 boys met the national minimum standard set for reading, down 5 per cent from 2008.
"The year 9 boys look like they're around a year's worth of learning behind girls," Dr Hunter said.
"Traditionally, boys haven't performed as well as girls, but that trend seems to be becoming more pronounced," she said.
COVID impact hard to determine
Dr Hunter said results from Victoria — which endured close to a full school year of home learning during COVID — did not conclusively show lockdown's impact one way or the other.
For example she said literacy had broadly improved across Australia, including in Victoria, and particularly among primary students.
"Reading has been trending up for a while now in those primarily primary school years and it looks like that trend has held up fairly well during the pandemic."
She also said a country-wide decline in writing over the decade to 2018 also appeared to have been reversed.
In fact, Victoria saw significant improvement in year 7 and 9 students' writing results.
However Dr Hunter said a decline in year 5 grammar results in Victoria could show learning from home in early primary impacted learning more than upper primary students.
She said Victoria's results might also show the value of small group tutoring.
"Victoria invested heavily in catch-up tutoring for students and that hopefully has played a really positive role in helping students make up for lost learning during those remote schooling periods."
Participation levels drop
The 2022 test had the fewest participants since NAPLAN began, with a steep drop off from the previous year.
ACARA chief executive David de Carvalho said the 2 per cent dip in participation across the board was an "issue of concern".
"Low participation rates can impact results analysis and the ability to get a clear picture of literacy and numeracy achievement at the national level," he said.
Dr Hunter said COVID and natural disasters like the flooding emergency in New South Wales likely contributed to the drop off.
"But [that] trend down has been something that's been well documented since before the pandemic."
She said that could be due to views in some parts of the community that NAPLAN was not important.
Improvements seen, but the gap is widening
This year's NAPLAN show results among Indigenous students are broadly improving.
However, remote and Indigenous students saw some of the lowest participation rates, with just 67.8 per cent of year 9 students in the Northern Territory sitting the numeracy test.
Dr Hunter said while the news was generally positive, more interrogation of the data was needed.
"We need to make sure that we're still really focusing heavily on supporting Indigenous students to achieve great literacy and numeracy results in schools," she said.
Dr Hunter said the 2022 data showed the disparity between students with highly-educated parents and those with less education had not improved.
She said the gap continued to widen between the first NAPLAN test in year 3, and the final test in year 9.
Education Minister Jason Clare said he was concerned about that gap.
“I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are, where you live or the colour of your skin," he said.
“That’s why I have said I want us to focus on this as part of the next National School Reform Agreement.”
The agreement dictates school funding and priorities for the next five years.
Federal and state and territory governments will begin negotiations by the end of 2021.
