Page 2831 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 24 June 2009

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The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Motion, as amended, agreed to.

Visitors

MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: I welcome students from St Clare’s College.

Schools—performance monitoring

MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (11.50): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes that the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) has announced plans to publish the performance of schools in national tests and, in addition, that information on each school’s student and teacher numbers, attendance and financial resources will be made publicly available;

(2) recognises that while transparency in the education system is important there needs to be safeguards in place around the release of test data;

(3) notes:

(a) the concerns expressed by school leaders across Australia who consider that publishing data which could lead to comparisons between schools could have a negative impact on school communities and would not be useful in improving the performance of schools; and

(b) the research from the United States and Britain which shows that assessment programs, such as the National Assessment Plan for Literacy and Numeracy, can have an unintended, negative impact on the quality of teaching and learning when low performance is sanctioned; and

(4) calls on the Minister for Education and Training:

(a) to advise the Assembly of what action he will take with his State and Federal colleagues to limit the publication of data based on national literacy and numeracy tests; and

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