Hundreds of schools around Australia have begun trialling NAPLAN Online. The executive director of NSW’s Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, Jenny Donovan, told ABC News schools were polled before the online trials to ascertain the number of laptops they had available and the extent of their online connectivity.
“We felt fairly confident that with a little bit of additional machinery that was made available from the department that most schools would be ready, and so far that seems to be the case,” Ms Donovan said.
“As we scale up the readiness testing effort, we’ll find out more and more about what schools’ issues may be.
“We’ve been polling teachers and students as we go, and students in particular are coming back to us saying they thoroughly enjoyed the experience, that they much prefer doing a test in an online environment.”
The Australian Education Union’s federal president Correna Haythorpe told ABC News teachers had raised concerns about the online test.
“Teachers and principals in our schools have told us that they are not ready to move to NAPLAN online,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“We have resolved to oppose the implementation of this test and to seek urgent meetings with education ministers around the country to share those concerns.”
The NSW Education Department’s polling found that students are embracing the new digital tests. Within the first week of the online test, 12,500 students were polled in the state. Of those students, 78 per cent of students said they liked using a computer or tablet to take the NAPLAN tests, and 15 per cent said they didn’t.
