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One in three Australian students are failing to meet national numeracy and literacy benchmarks, but NAPLAN data shows Victorian schools are outperforming those in other states.
Nationwide NAPLAN results released on Wednesday show little or no improvement on last year, with large numbers of children still struggling with the basics of learning, despite a federal push to reshape how reading and maths are taught and tested.
The results of tests sat by more than 1.2 million children around the nation in March show nearly 30 per cent were “not achieving the learning outcomes that are expected” or “working towards expectations” in numeracy, reading, writing and spelling. More than 40 per cent of participants did not reach benchmarks in grammar.
The Centre for Independent Studies education researcher Trisha Jha said if NAPLAN was a “health check” of the education system, longer-term data provided the best insight.
“On the other hand, it is important to be vigilant when there is a bit of a negative trend,” she said.
Year 5, 7 and 9 students’ 2026 numeracy score improved slightly compared to 2025, while Year 3 students’ average numeracy score was lower than in all four comparable years. Changes were introduced after 2022 to how NAPLAN results are measured, and testing was moved from May to March.
National reading scores and writing scores were lower across all year levels in 2026 compared to 2025. In reading, the students who received the lowest score, “Needs additional support”, was 10.2 per cent, compared to 9.3 per cent in 2025.
Victorian students scored higher than the national average across all disciplines for a second consecutive year and outperformed students in all other states in writing and numeracy.
Jha said Victoria had a “geographical advantage” which often saw students perform better academically than those in other states.
“Victoria has something that other states don’t have, and that is to say, they have no remote and very remote communities,” Jha said.
Students from urban areas performed better than those from remote regions across the disciplines and higher results tended to align with students from the highest socio-educational backgrounds.
In reading, 23.1 per cent of students from very remote schools were rated as “strong” or “exceeding”, compared to 70 per cent of students from major city schools.
In numeracy, 23.1 per cent of students from very remote schools were in the top two categories, compared to 70.8 per cent of students from major city schools.
Female students outperformed male students in writing, achieving average NAPLAN scores above male students in every year group. Male students generally outperformed female students in numeracy.