By Robyn Grace
NAPLAN testing for all students should be scrapped and the ATAR system recast to better reflect a student as a whole person, not just an exam score, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.
The negative impact on student wellbeing from the blunt, system-wide ranking provided by the two traditional measures of success was now far outweighing the benefits of keeping them, the Australian Education Union argued at Victoria’s inquiry into the education system.
The education union says ATAR scores and NAPLAN testing are having a negative effect on students’ wellbeing.Credit: iStock
The union has called for NAPLAN to be replaced with the testing of just a sample of students, as was originally intended, and for the VCE and ATAR to be reviewed to alleviate the negative impacts on student wellbeing.
Victorian branch deputy president Justin Mullaly told the inquiry more universities were turning their backs on the ATAR – which gives students a rank between 99.95 and zero – and, instead, using measures including aptitude tests and interviews.
Increasing numbers of students are also choosing to do an unscored VCE. In 2022, the latest data available, 10.9 per cent of students chose an unscored route, more than double the 4.1 per cent in 2018.
Psychologists have also pointed out the link between the timing of final exams and the age when teens are at their most vulnerable.
“From that point of view, the question has to be asked, what is the purpose of ATAR ... when we know that it can create pressure for students that actually undermines student achievement,” Mullaly said.
“Reducing students to a number – which is what we currently do – actually doesn’t value the learning of students and it shouldn’t be there as a proxy for quality. Quality is actually measured by how well a student does in their actual studies, not how they’re ranked.”
Mullaly said he wasn’t proposing a radical change to the VCE, but the stress associated with ATARs too often meant students couldn’t achieve expected outcomes.
The union’s submission to a federal review of the education system showed declines in student wellbeing and engagement last year exceeded those in 2021, at the height of COVID-19 disruptions.
A state survey of teachers and principals last year showed 46 per cent found NAPLAN “greatly” contributed to stress and anxiety in students, and 81 per cent said the annual assessment of years 3, 5, 7 and 9 had a negative or no effect on student outcomes.
The union’s Victorian branch president, Meredith Peace, told the state inquiry NAPLAN was established to test progress within the system, which the union still supported, but had expanded to pit schools and students against each other.
“It was never intended for that purpose and it does enormous damage,” she said.
In its submission to the inquiry, the union called on the government to replace NAPLAN with assessments that were “fit for purpose”, including the professional judgment of teachers.
It said instead of ranking students and schools, NAPLAN reporting should be used to identify and rectify growing equity gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
A group of more than a dozen principals from public and private schools wrote a letter last year, demanding the ATAR be replaced with a system that better evaluates students’ academic and personal achievements.
Carey Baptist Grammar School principal Jonathan Walter told The Age at the time school-leavers were being let down by current assessment and university entry methods.
“The ATAR is such a narrow representation of a student at the end of a 13-year journey,” he said.
“They come out diminished to a single number which doesn’t reflect who they are, the sort of things they can contribute to society or, indeed, what they value and believe in.”
But experts warned scrapping the ATAR would make competition for a university place less fair and give affluent students an even greater head start against their less advantaged peers.
The Education Department has been contacted for comment.
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