Less than half of Year 9 boys in the NT meet minimum reading standards, according to latest NAPLAN results.
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Worse still, less than 20 per cent of Indigenous Year 9 students meet those standards.
NAPLAN assesses Australian school students in years three, five, seven and nine across four domains: reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, and grammar and punctuation), and numeracy.
According to the annual NAPLAN report a little more than half of NT students meet the minimum standard for Year 7 writing, compared with 90.8 per cent in Victoria.
More than 30 per cent of NT Year 5 students do not read to a satisfactory level.
While we still lag far behind the rest of the country, NT results have improved during the past six years.
This year remote Aboriginal students have improved in 19 of the 20 test measures, compared with 2016.
Education department CEO Vicki Baylis said it was promising to see NAPLAN results showing some Territory student cohorts comparing favourably to the rest of Australia.
“There is still work to do, however we are heading in the right direction with the Territory’s long term NAPLAN results showing overall improvement,” Ms Baylis said.
“The Northern Territory is a unique jurisdiction with a hugely diverse population compared to the rest of Australia.
“Nearly 50 per cent of our students are located in remote or very remote locations across the Territory with many speaking English as a second language.
“We acknowledge this can be challenging which is why as part of the enhanced School Resourcing Model, $4 million in ongoing funding will be distributed in school budgets from 2019, to increase support for students who speak English as a Second Language.”
Ms Baylis said the department has a focus on improving overall student educational outcomes.
“In the Territory, our focus will continue to be ensuring our students make progress and are engaged and learning every day,” Ms Baylis said.
“Improving educational outcomes of our students is everyone’s business.
“We will continue to work with parents and the community to ensure students attend school every day, so that teachers can engage students with learning and we see that progress and improvement.”