National Report on Schooling in Australia 2010

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education

7.4 Literacy and numeracy (Second Page)

Continued from previous page... 

Table 7.10 shows the national percentages by Indigenous status of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students whose results place them at or above the minimum standard for Numeracy and the mean scale scores for Numeracy, by Indigenous status. 

Table 7.10    Achievement in Numeracy for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 at or above minimum standard and mean scale scores by
                       Indigenous status, Australia, 2010

Notes:

Exempt students were not assessed and are deemed not to have met the minimum standard.

Further information about student achievement in Numeracy, by Indigenous status, is available from the 2010 NAPLAN National Report. Specific achievement data for Numeracy are included for Year 3 (p. 48), Year 5 (p. 112), Year 7 (p. 176) and Year 9 (p. 240).

Closing the Gap

Figure 7.6    Achievement of Year 3 students at or above minimum standard, by NAPLAN key domains, by Indigenous status,
                      Australia, 2010

 

 Note: The number shown between the plot points for each domain is the percentage point difference or ‘gap’ between non-Indigenous and Indigenous achievement.

Figure 7.7     Achievement of Year 5 students at or above minimum standard, by NAPLAN key domains, by Indigenous status,
                       Australia, 2010

Note: The number shown between the plot points for each domain is the percentage point difference or ‘gap’ between non-Indigenous and Indigenous achievement.

 

Source: ACARA, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Achievement in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy 2010

 

Figure 7.8     Achievement of Year 7 students at or above minimum standard, by NAPLAN key domains, by Indigenous status,
                       Australia, 2010

Note: The number shown between the plot points for each domain is the percentage point difference or ‘gap’ between non-Indigenous and Indigenous achievement.

 

Source: ACARA, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Achievement in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy 2010

 

Figure 7.9     Achievement of Year 9 students at or above minimum standard, by NAPLAN key domains, by Indigenous status,
                       Australia, 2010

 

Note: The number shown between the plot points for each domain is the percentage point difference or ‘gap’ between non-Indigenous and Indigenous achievement.

 

Source: ACARA, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Achievement in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy 2010

 

The gaps between the proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and non-Indigenous students achieving at or above the national minimum standard in Reading ranged from 19.3 percentage points for the Year 7 cohort to 28.0 percentage points for the Year 9 cohort.

 

The gap between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous student cohort for Year 3 Writing at 17.6 percentage points was the smallest of the gaps any each year level in any of the key domains.

 

The gap (29.7 per cent) between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous students was larger in Year 9 Writing than the gap in any other year level in any of the key domains.

 

The gaps between the proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous students achieving the national minimum standard in Numeracy ranged from 18.7 percentage points for the Year 3 cohort to 23.9 percentage points for the Year 9 cohort.

 

Progress towards halving the gap in literacy and numeracy achievement is monitored against indicative trajectories for each State and Territory and is reported for the period 2008–10 in The National Indigenous Reform Agreement: Supplement on literacy and numeracy achievement 2010.¹

 

In its 2010 report to COAG on the National Education Agreement, the COAG Reform Council includes the following key finding:

 

Based on three years of data, the COAG targets to halve the gap in literacy and numeracy achievement by 2018 are generally on track for Years 3, 5 and 7 – but at risk for Year 9.²

NAPLAN participation

Key Performance Measure 7(i) in the Measurement Framework for Schooling in Australia relates to NAPLAN participation rates. Table 7.11 reports this KPM by Indigenous status.

 

Key Performance Measure 7(i) Proportion of students participating in NAPLAN for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 for Reading, Writing and Numeracy

 

Table 7.11      Number and proportion of students participating in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 NAPLAN Reading, Writing and Numeracy, by
Indigenous status, Australia, 2010

Status	Reading		Writing		Numeracy
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Year 3
Indigenous	11,272	89.9	11,322	90.3	11,170	89.1
Non-Indigenous	225,078	96.1	224,938	96.0	224,498	95.8
Year 5
Indigenous	12,710	91.2	12,685	91.0	12,547	90.0
Non-Indigenous	249,232	96.6	249,157	96.5	248,465	96.3
Year 7
Indigenous	11,953	89.1	12,002	89.5	11,876	88.6
Non-Indigenous	248,611	96.5	248,785	96.5	247,812	96.2
Year 9
Indigenous	10,366	79.7	10,431	80.2	10,253	78.8
Non-Indigenous	246,035	93.7	246,688	94.0	244,950	93.3

 

Notes:

Participation rates are calculated as all assessed and exempt students as a percentage of the total number of students in the year level, as reported by schools, which includes those absent and withdrawn.

 

Students for whom ‘Indigenous status’ was not stated are not included in the data which is provided by Indigenous status.

 

Source: ACARA, National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy – Achievement in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy, 2010
 

 

Participation rates in NAPLAN in 2010 were consistently lower for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students than for non-Indigenous students across all cohorts and key domains.

 

Further information on the participation rates of Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students in Reading, Writing and Numeracy, by Indigenous status, is available in the 2010 NAPLAN National Report. Specific participation data for Reading, Writing and Numeracy are included for Year 3 (p. 58), Year 5 (p. 122), Year 7 (p. 186) and Year 9 (p. 250).

 

Continued on next page...

 

---

¹ COAG Reform Council, The National Indigenous Reform Agreement: Supplement on literacy and numeracy achievement 2010, COAG Reform Council, Sydney, 2011

² COAG Reform Council, Education 2010: Comparing performance across Australia, COAG Reform Council, Sydney, 2011, p. ix