NAPLAN testing for 1.3 million Australian school students resumed yesterday following technical problems that saw schools across the country unable to access the digital test. Source: ABC News.
A spokesperson for the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) apologised for the issue which meant testing had to be paused for about two hours.
“We apologise for the disruption to students and schools and thank them for their patience. The issue has now been resolved, and schools have been informed they can resume testing,” a spokesperson for ACARA said.
NAPLAN is an annual test of literacy and numeracy for students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and is run by ACARA.
Students were sitting the writing component of the exam yesterday but at 9.20am AEDT ACARA was notified that some students were unable to log on to the online platform to complete their assessments.
ACARA chief executive Stephen Gniel took responsibility for the system failure.
“This has caused disruptions in a significant number of schools and for that we apologise unreservedly,” he said.
Mr Gniel said it was not yet known how many students were affected.
“It is a massive undertaking to make this work across the country … you can see why when something like this happens it can be a significant disruption.”
He said ACARA’s technology provider, Education Services Australia, were able to resolve the issue at about 11.15am but it wasn’t yet known what caused it.
Mr Gniel said ACARA would now work with schools to organise when students who couldn’t take the test yesterday could re-sit it and ensure that no one was disadvantaged.
Year 3 students who sat paper versions of the test continued testing as normal.
NAPLAN testing moved online in 2022 to speed up the time it takes for parents to get results back.
Further reforms agreed to by education ministers, and introduced in 2023, moved the date of testing forward from May to March.
National NAPLAN results are usually released in July, with individual school results updated on the MySchool website in December.
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NAPLAN resumes after earlier technical issues paused online testing (By Conor Duffy, ABC News)
