Federation welcomes the announcement by NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes that NAPLAN will be decoupled from the HSC.
While supporting the push for all students needing to reach minimum standards by the end of schooling, Federation opposed the use of NAPLAN as a minimum benchmark.
“It was an inappropriate use of NAPLAN due to the extremely narrow focus of the tests and the lack of relevance to curriculum content,” Federation President Maurie Mulheron said.
“Its use risked labeling students as failures early in their high school career.”
Instead, Federation maintains that there needs to be greater system-wide support for all public schools in order allow them to provide intensive and early intervention for those students in danger of not meeting minimum standards.
“Unfortunately, that has become much harder now that the Federal Government has torn up the previous funding agreements with the states resulting in a loss of $856 million of funding from NSW public schools over the next two years,” said Mr Mulheron.
Federation looks forward to working with NSW educational authorities on the next stage of the plan to ensure all students meet minimum standards by the end of Year 12.