Premier Roger Cook says NAPLAN results show importance of $1.6b funding deal with Commonwealth

Poor NAPLAN results that showed a third of West Australian students had fallen behind the basic levels underscore the importance of the State agreeing to a billion-dollar funding deal with the Commonwealth, the Premier says. Speaking after the release of NAPLAN results showed 30 per cent of WA students on average scored in the lowest bands on literacy and numeracy, Roger Cook said the testing regime “shone a light” on the need for improvement. The results showed across the country, including in WA, there had been no meaningful improvement on last year’s numbers. “They don’t surprise me. We know that NAPLAN has shone a light on our education system, year in year out, and challenges us to do better, and I think that’s a good thing,” Mr Cook said. Liberal leader Libby Mettam said the results were a demonstration of the Cook Government’s failure on “every metric”. “It is appalling that a third of Western Australian students, according to NAPLAN, are falling behind,” she said. “The Cook Labor government are continuing to fail in their job of ensuring that Western Australians have a government that they deserve.” Amid revelations a WA primary school was accused of cheating during a Year 3 NAPLAN test, after supplying students with a planning sheet, Mr Cook said the Education Department had the matter in hand and the school had been counselled. But a silver lining — the State’s Year 9 cohort scoring highly across multiple measures — was praised by the Premier as a sign of “terrific education” from WA teachers. “It underpins, doesn’t it, the importance of my Government reaching an agreement with the Commonwealth on the significant funding package, which will see all Western Australian public school students, receiving the full Gonski-related standard of resources,” he said. “We want to make sure our kids can thrive and grow and develop in our classrooms, and NAPLAN always, always shines a light on the challenges of a modern education environment.” WA has been the only State to agree to the federal funding deal, which will see the Commonwealth’s share increase to 22.5 per cent by 2026 — up to $1.6 billion. Other States are holding out, over demands of an increased Federal contribution to their public schools of 25 per cent.