Canberra’s literacy and numeracy rates have been on the ropes for years, but the ACT Government have announced they will spend nearly $25 million to implement an expert panel’s recommendations to improve these basics of education.

“Investing in the education of our children provides life-long benefits and sets them up with the best chance for success,” Chief Minister Andrew Barr said. “There is no better investment we can make in the future of our city than to ensure our children master the fundamentals of their education. This measure provides more resources and equipment for schools, more centralised support for teachers and a more consistent approach across the public school system.”

Teachers’ unions and P&C associations welcomed the funding announcement, calling it a possible game changer for ACT schools, but warned that many ACT teachers were at breaking point, and that positive changes were necessary now. The opposition, however, argues that the funding is insufficient, and the announcement short on detail.

ACT’s literacy results sub-standard

The Final Report of the Literacy and Numeracy Education Expert Panel, published last month, recommended that the government adopt a system-wide approach to teaching and learning for the ACT to achieve equity and excellence in education. The Panel was established in November to advise education minister Yvette Berry on addressing equity gaps and improving literacy and numeracy outcomes in ACT public schools.

The Panel followed a Canberra Liberals motion for the government to conduct an independent inquiry into literacy performance in the ACT. Then-shadow education minister Jeremy Hanson was concerned that literacy in ACT Government schools was underperforming, and had fallen over the last two decades. According to NAPLAN results, a third of Year 9 students did not meet benchmarks for reading; a quarter of students could not spell; and one-tenth was unable to read or write.

Ms Berry had observed that the ACT was the highest performing Australian jurisdiction in reading literacy, as measured through international assessments PISA and PIRLS; and that the equity gap in reading had narrowed between 2018 and 2021. She acknowledged, however, that the equity gap in reading had widened, according to 2022 data, due to the pandemic.

Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee, shadow minister for education, today blamed Ms Berry, claiming the minister had ignored warnings by the Auditor-General, the Grattan Institute (a domestic policy think-tank), and the Australian National University about the need to use evidence-based methodologies to improve literacy and numeracy skills, and that the minister had dismissed her own motions since 2019 for phonics checks.

Three years ago, the Canberra Liberals produced a report showing:

• The ACT had underperformed on NAPLAN (national standardised Literacy and Numeracy) assessments since 2012, and has a downward trajectory compared to other regions of similar socio-economic advantage.
• ACT government schools on average achieved negative results on every measure, performing below similar schools in other jurisdictions (Auditor-General, 2017).
• By Year 5, students in the ACT were almost six months behind students in comparable schools in numeracy, markedly below the rest of the country (Victoria University, 2017).
• Year 7 and 9 students’ writing and numeracy were below equivalent mean results from statistically similar schools (ANU, 2018).
• The ACT was below average for comparably high Australian socio-economic advantage quartile groups on Literacy, Maths, and Science (PISA – Programme for International Student Assessment, 2018). (However, a 2020 PISA test showed ACT students performing better than average in reading, science, and maths.)
• ACT mean Maths and Science scores were well below means used for assessing socio-economic advantage in both Year 4 and 8 (TIMSS – Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, 2019).
• The ACT Education Directorate’s own Annual Report 2019–20 stated that only one of seven key performance indicators was met.
• “The ACT is the worst performer,” according to the Grattan Institute (2018). “On a life-for-life basis, its students make two to three months’ less progress than the national average in both primary and secondary school.”

At the time, the government rejected the Canberra Liberals’ call for an independent investigation into the ACT education system. It did not agree to investigate literacy and numeracy for two more years.

“This education minister has let down a whole generation of Canberra students,” Ms Lee said today. “One in three 15-year-olds is not meeting the national benchmark for reading, and that is a national shame.”

Budget funding for literacy and numeracy

Over the next four years, the 2024-25 ACT Budget will invest $24.9 million for the ACT Education Directorate to implement the Final Report’s eight recommendations, beginning next year:

1. A system-wide model of curriculum implementation, teaching, assessment and professional learning, to achieve greater consistency across ACT public schools.
2. A culture of high expectations that prioritises learning.
3. A consistent and centrally supported literacy and numeracy curriculum.
4. An evidence-informed teaching framework, with quality professional learning and coaching.
5. Consistent assessment and diagnostic tools, including mandated progress assessments, a suite of diagnostic tools, and a new data management system.
6. A Multi-Tiered System of Supports in every school, meeting students at their point of need, so every student can achieve their maximum learning gain.
7. Listening to and engaging with students, families and the community to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes.
8. Implement recommendations using a change management approach involving collaboration and phased actions that are responsive to data.

The Report observed that the ACT public school system was highly autonomous: the system empowers principals to make local decisions on curriculum implementation, teaching, assessment practices, professional learning, and school management. While some stakeholders valued this level of autonomy, others suggested that it meant the system acted more as a collection of independently run schools, resulting in a high degree of variability between schools, with significant workload implications for both teachers and school leaders.

“Teachers and ACT public schools already provide high quality education to all our students,” Ms Berry said. “Implementing the Expert Panel recommendations will strengthen the great work that is already happening and apply it more consistently across the public school system.

“This is an investment in learning for our young Canberrans to ensure that every ACT public school supports every student to reach their potential.”

A new suite of system-wide literacy and numeracy initiatives, called Strong Foundations, will ensure all public school students have access to consistent, high-quality literacy and numeracy education, Ms Berry said.

Under Strong Foundations, Canberra families will have access to:

• evidence-informed and consistent teaching practices in every classroom;
• common assessments, including a Year 1 phonics test;
• advice and resources for parents, to support their children with literacy and numeracy; and
• multitiered systems of support for students in every public school. 

Strong Foundations will reduce teacher workloads through more system support, Ms Berry said. School staff will be able to collaborate and to move between ACT public schools without needing to learn new systems and ways of working.

“Strong Foundations will give children and young people across Canberra a high-quality and consistent start to their literacy and numeracy education,” Ms Berry said.

From the start of 2025, each public school classroom from Kindergarten to Year 2 will receive additional funding for system-approved literacy and numeracy teaching materials and equipment, including decodable readers and mathematical resources. Teachers will have additional resources, such as lesson planning support.

The full four-year implementation plan for Strong Foundations will be shared with the community later this year. As part of this four-year plan, the Expert Panel will be asked every year to review the implementation and report on its progress to the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs.

The Board of Senior SecondaryStudies will introduce new Bridging Literacy and Bridging Numeracy courses to support year 11 and 12 students to achieve the minimum standards of the Australian Core Skills Framework level 3. 

AEU ACT: ‘Potential game changer’

Angela Burroughs, branch president of the Australian Education Union (AEU) ACT, said: “This funding announcement is a down payment on hope.  It’s a down payment on keeping educators in a profession they love. It’s a down payment on bringing the joy back to teaching.

“It’s a down payment because it represents the beginning of the major funding that is required to fully implement the findings from the review of literacy and numeracy in ACT public schools. It is reassuring to hear the Minister acknowledge this.

“ACT public school educators love the profession they work in. Too many, however, are at breaking point. The Minister heard this first-hand this week when she attended a meeting of the AEU Branch Council. She heard moving pleas for urgent support from new educators, experienced teachers, school leaders, school psychologists, teacher librarians, and school assistants.

“What the Minister also observed is the extraordinary goodwill from the profession and their support of the proposed reforms. This will quickly evaporate if staff do not experience positive change soon.

“That’s why the AEU and the Council of P&C associations are united in their support for this reform. We want to see this reform succeed. It has the potential to be a game changer for ACT public schools, for the students that attend them and for the dedicated staff who work in them.”

Canberra Liberals: Short on details

The Canberra Liberals, however, say the announcement is short on detail, and had not taken on board all the Panel’s recommendations.

Ms Lee said there did not seem to be sufficient funding to implement all the recommendations in full; $24.9 million “goes nowhere near meeting the cost that will be involved to actually have this done”.

Moreover, some details were missing: checks for numeracy, or how the multi-tiered support system would be implemented. Some of the money would go to the IT system upgrade, but Ms Lee said she had “no faith” that the $24.9 million promised would “result in true and meaningful benefits for our students”, given the government had “blown” $78 million on the failed HRIMS system.

Ms Lee said Ms Berry must provide all the details before October’s election.

“Canberra families have been calling for this reform for years,” Ms Lee said. “They should be afforded the respect [of] full details before the ACT election so they know exactly what they are voting for.”