NAPLAN has few friends these days. Many in the education sector have joined the argument against it, warning its data is being mis-used, its importance is over-emphasised and the industry it spawned is exploiting families.

Only a few supporters remain. They include parents hungry for information on how their children are faring compared with their peers and researchers that use the data generated by the tests to study trends in students' performance.

NAPLAN has very few supporters left. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

But as a result of the move towards online testing, NAPLAN may have lost both.

Senior education bureaucrats met on Wednesday to discuss their fear that results of the online test, sat by students at about 20 per cent of schools nationally, and the results of the pen-and-paper tests are too different to be statistically comparable.