CANBERRA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Minister for Education has urged parents and schools to support the controversial National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), as primary-school students are sitting examination.
Simon Birmingham said on Tuesday that the NAPLAN tests, which assess the reading, writing and numeracy skills of students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9, create a solid base for evaluation.
The assessments are carried out in schools across Australia and aim to identify whether students meet levels which "provide the critical foundation for learning," according to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
The education minister's plea came after the New South Wales (NSW) and Australian Capital Territory (ACT) governments criticised NAPLAN because of the sense of competition promoted by the tests, and called for them to be abolished.
ACT Education Minister, Yvette Berry, told Australian: "What we're hearing in the ACT, what it is causing, is this kind of high stakes testing.
"Schools are marketing themselves against each other... and I hope ministers across the country are working towards an improved assessment tool and putting an end to NAPLAN."
But Birmingham dismissed those concerns, saying NAPLAN was just one assessment that occurred at four different times during a child's primary-school education.
"The Australian Parents' Council, the government state school organizations and others all quite recently reaffirmed their support for NAPLAN because they like to see that they get a check at these different junctures of a child's educational experience," he said.
