Five Victorian schools have been found to be involved in 54 cases of cheating, security lapses or “maladministrative practices” in the 2011 NAPLAN tests, according to a report by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.
At one Victorian school, staff tried to prevent ten students sitting the tests. The breach was reported and students were later able to take the test, while “all staff involved were immediately briefed on correct NAPLAN practices”.
The report revealed there were 14 breaches in New South Wales, the highest count in Australia, which included a case in which a principal assisted students in completing the Language Conventions test. Victorian Education Minister Martin Dixon last year vowed to take measures to crack down on school’s that discouraged students from taking the national test to improve the school’s overall results on the My School website.
The breaches on the NAPLAN tests have been attributed to the My School website. Save Our Schools national convener Trevor Cobbold said, “there was no cheating by teachers, no pressuring of parents to withdraw children from tests because they might reduce a school’s results, no children being kept home becasue they are too stressed by NAPLAN, no teaching to the test and no narrowing of the curriculum.”
Students can only be excused from taking the tests if they have a significant disability or if they are from a non-English-speaking background and arrived in Australia less than one year before the tests.