FED: Govt defends literacy benchmarks amid criticism

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-1999
FED: Govt defends literacy benchmarks amid criticism

By Rosalind Mathieson

CANBERRA, Feb 15 AAP - Australia was unlikely to gain a clear picture of childhood
illiteracy with the federal government failing to gain uniform testing across the states, the
opposition said today.

Labor education spokesman Michael Lee said he was disturbed by Victorian Education Minister
Phil Gude's warning today that federal government literacy benchmarks could not be measured
accurately.

Mr Gude said the lack of uniform testing meant it was almost impossible to accurately
compare the performance of students between states.

Mr Lee said the government had failed to address the lack of uniform testing when it set up
its benchmarks.

"Education Minister David Kemp's quick to take the credit but slow to do the job," he told
AAP.

"Today's comments from Education Minister Gude demonstrate that there is no guarantee that
we will obtain a national picture of literacy standards in Australia, despite the fact Dr Kemp
has been claiming for more than a year now he has obtained the agreement of state ministers to
carry this out.

"If each state has its own different state testing regimes then it means that when the
figures come through in a few month's time we still won't know the extent of literacy problems
in the country."

Mr Gude said Victoria would highlight the issue at an upcoming meeting of education
ministers in April and called on other states to support national testing.

"Despite the best efforts of our academics, comparability has become a vexed issue and for
the good of the nation we should now move forward and adopt a uniform national test," Mr Gude
said.

A spokeswoman for Dr Kemp earlier said the government was moving to ensure that test
results from individual states could be compared.

"An expert committee has been working on (that)," the spokeswoman told AAP. "That work
should be completed this year.

"It's good to know that Victoria will be supporting that work."

Under an agreement between the federal and state governments, children in year three are
being tested against federal benchmarks this year, with those in year five to follow.

So far, only Western Australia has reported the results of its tests.

AAP rmm/mfh/was/de

KEYWORD: LITERACY LABOR

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