The ministers, who met in Alice Springs on Wednesday, also agreed to a new set of guiding principles for education, with the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration to replace the 11-year-old Melbourne Declaration. During the marathon meeting, ministers agreed to move ahead with a roll-out of so-called learning progressions, which are a step-by-step sequence of skills that map how students' learning typically develops. NSW already uses learning progressions for literacy and numeracy, which were developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority in line with the national curriculum. However, teachers have struggled with the time-consuming data collection. The next phase of the project will focus on improving the progressions, and linking them to existing assessments such as NSW's pre-kindergarten Best Start test. It will also look at developing new online tests that can be downloaded by teachers; creating resources to help teachers use the progressions; and producing plain-language reports for parents.

"It's a way of providing teachers with the ability to ensure in particular that students aren't being left behind, or that those students who might be achieving above class average, they are also getting material to make sure they are continuing to progress," Mr Tehan said. Some educators have welcomed the progressions, saying they could provide valuable support for teachers once the online tests and support material are developed. But some are unclear about how they will work, and others doubt they will help. Greg Ashman, a maths teacher and author of The Truth About Teaching, said the progressions were too rigid and vague to reflect the complexity of learning. It would also be difficult for students on the lower end of a progression to catch up. "Where is the evidence that learning progressions will improve PISA outcomes?" he said. "I am not aware of any." NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said some of the reforms, such as curriculum reform and learning progressions, were under way in NSW.

"I welcomed recognition that teacher training is critical to the success of our students," she said. "There was consensus that we must do more to encourage students to study maths and science in the senior years, including consideration of pre-requisites for university courses." Loading Victoria's James Merlino said the meeting was the most productive in his five years as education minister. "The community rightly expected ministers to take significant steps in light of the recent PISA results at this week's Education Council," he said. "I am very glad to say that was the case." Mr Merlino also raised the importance of maths prerequisites for degrees, and looked forward to Mr Tehan "bringing options to address these issues back to education council early next year. Ministers agreed to make the My School website simpler but to keep school's average scores, amid fears that removing raw results to stop media outlets creating league tables would reduce transparency.