Thousands of students were unable to complete the tests due to technical difficulties

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Naplan Online will undergo an independent review after a botched rollout left thousands of students unable to complete the tests.

The federal education minister, Dan Tehan, announced the review on Sunday after students across Australia experienced technical difficulties trying to complete the tests.

He said the review would look into the administration of the tests as well as “focus on the delivery of the platform and any factors that contributed to the experience of some schools”.

Tehan said Naplan had also been placed on the agenda at the next meeting of the Education Council between the commonwealth and state and territory ministers.

Naplan online failures bring more calls from states for reform Read more

“Any change to Naplan or its online provision would be a decision of all education ministers,” Tehan said on Sunday.

There had been frustration from state ministers at the handling of the move to online testing, as well as a broader push to overhaul Naplan itself.

About 50% of schools were due to complete the assessments online in 2019, compared with 15% last year.

In Queensland, where more than 1,800 students will have to resit tests, the education minister, Grace Grace, has called for the full online rollout to be delayed beyond 2020.

“Queensland has always taken a cautious approach to the implementation of online testing for Naplan and the issues experienced by students in the past fortnight justify that approach,” she said.

“States were reassured by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority that issues experienced with the online test in 2018 had been addressed, However, we saw more issues this year.

“The federal government needs to delay the full rollout of Naplan online until further testing and enhancements can be made.”

The New South Wales education minister, Sarah Mitchell, has also called for a delay of the full online rollout, while in Western Australia, where one-third of students doing the tests online could not complete them, the minister, Sue Ellery, said it was a “live issue” whether the state would participate in the online test next year.

But the furore over the technical glitches that have plagued the online test come amid increasing questions over the value of Naplan itself.

Last year, after pressure from state ministers, the former education minister Simon Birmingham agreed to a “narrow” review of whether the My School website provides “valid, reliable and contextualised” information, and whether the reporting of Naplan results balances “the community’s right to know with the need to avoid the misinterpretation or misuse of the information”.

In its submission to the review, which is due to report in June, the University of NSW’s Gonski Institute, led by the former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli, called for Naplan to be scrapped in favour of sample-based testing.

“There is growing evidence Naplan is having a negative impact on schools, students and teachers,” Piccoli said at the time. “Naplan and the publishing of results on the My School website has imposed a high stakes dimension to student testing and this has led to increased student anxiety, teaching to the test and a narrowing of the curriculum.

“The Gonski Institute supports a national testing system so the performance of our education systems can be monitored, but we recommend a better approach.

“We want the current tests, where every student is tested in years 3, 5, 7 and 9, replaced with a sample-based test of students.

“This new approach would mean the publication of school-by-school results on the My School website will no longer be possible. As a result, the high stakes nature of the current national assessment program on both students and teachers would be dramatically reduced.”