Can you imagine the Federal Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, decreeing to the masses that, due to some concerns about hospital performance, we’re regressing to the treatment of patients with leeches?

NAPLAN has failed because of one key misuse of the tool: we publish the data. Credit:Adam McLean

“Sure,” he’d say. “We know that this is a tool of a bygone era and that there’s zero scientific proof that it works. We know the professionals who will use the leeches despise the idea, but we think we know better. It’s time that our hospitals got back to basics.”

Well, that’s effectively what Victorian education minister James Merlino is doing in response to some disappointing data about year 9 performance in NAPLAN in our state.

His idea to attach year 9 NAPLAN scores to their future job applications does nothing more than increase the damage that this failed tool is causing as we all attempt to build a better education system.