Page 5213 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010
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be young parents. They could be young carers or young students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who come from struggling families. They could be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children or refugee and migrant children whom we welcome into the ACT. We need to ensure that they have those opportunities, that there are programs, specialist teachers and so forth that can assist them to really thrive in school and show what they can do. There is no doubt that it is important. That is why I have put forward an amendment. I thank Mr Hargreaves again for bringing forward the issue of education to the Assembly this afternoon.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Gaming and Racing) (5.52): I thank Mr Hargreaves for raising this matter this afternoon and I thank those who contributed, some more positively than others, as is generally the case in this place.
Mrs Dunne: And you’re going to give marks, are you—As, Bs, or just most improved?
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Mr Barr has the floor.
MR BARR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT’s results from the 2010 NAPLAN tests were certainly encouraging. As a number of members have observed, they were either the best or equal best amongst all jurisdictions in the country. That is something that I think we can all, hopefully, even across the political divide, be able to support this afternoon—whether that is by noting or commending various forms of words. You would like to think that it would be possible, particularly when other amendments are moved that suggest that we should have a non-politicised education system, to have agreement in these areas at least.
I am not going to quibble over the form of words. I think Ms Hunter’s amendment noting the significant achievement of students is very similar to Mr Hargreaves’s motion, so that is quite a reasonable thing to support. Commending teachers and schools for their commitment to improving student achievements in literacy and numeracy is a fair and reasonable statement and one that the Assembly should support. I am certainly happy to outline this afternoon and continue to address the achievement gap and the actions that the government will take in an attempt to reduce that achievement gap.
I think it is worth noting from the outset that the 2010 NAPLAN results showed that between 94 and 97 per cent of students, depending on the year level and the domain tested, were at or above the national minimum standard. With few exceptions, the mean scores of ACT students were either stand-alone the highest in the nation or equal top with New South Wales and Victoria.
The full NAPLAN results will be published in December, but these early NAPLAN results are a strong indicator of the levels of excellence demonstrated by students in our schools. In reading, the ACT mean score results for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 were the highest in Australia and significantly higher than the national mean. This is similar to results in 2008 and 2009. Across all year levels the ACT had a greater percentage of
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