Call for uniform national literacy testing

Victorian Education Minister Phil Gude has called on all state and territory governments to commit themselves to uniform national literacy testing.

"All governments last year agreed to a set of national literacy benchmarks but it has become clear that the benchmarks cannot be measured accurately because each State has its own testing regime."

Victoria's Learning Assessment Project (LAP) which test years 3 and 5 students against the state's Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) is a broadly based test aimed at giving parents, teachers and schools information about where their children are achieving compared to specified curriculum outcomes.

The national benchmark is a more empirical measure designed to give a cut off score to enable national comparisons to be made.

"We acknowledge that the two approaches are different and that each state should have the ability to test against their specific curriculum," Mr Gude said.

"In Victoria, we have developed a comprehensive and rigorous curriculum with a strong emphasis on the basics - reading and writing - in the first years of primary school through our $102 million a year Early Years literacy program.

"We also have statewide testing of all students at years 3 and 5 to assess whether they're learning to the expected standard, through the LAP.

"However, not all states have the same programs in place. It is almost impossible to accurately compare the performance of students between states.

"The way forward is to develop a uniform national testing regime that all states and territories can be happy with.

"Victoria sees two possible approaches, either a set of national benchmark questions that are made part of each jurisdictions test or a national benchmark test that is taken on the same day across the nation on a sample basis," Mr Gude said.

Victoria will be putting the issue up for debate at the forthcoming Ministerial council meeting of education Ministers in April.

"We are prepared to offer the services of Prof. Sam Ball, the Chief Executive Officer of our Board of Studies to work with other internationally recognised testing experts to create a national testing regime that is acceptable and workable and I call on all other States, Territories and the Commonwealth to cooperate," Mr Gude said.

(News Release, Office of the Minister for Education, 15 February 1999)