Education System

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:38): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister update the house on the Marshall Liberal government's success in improved outcomes in our schools?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:39): It's a great honour for me to have this question from the member for MacKillop, whom I meet regularly and talk about outcomes for students and young people across South Australia, including in schools and preschools in the MacKillop electorate. I know the member for MacKillop is passionate about education, as are members on the government side most generally.

Since coming to government there are some very strong indicators of improved outcomes for our children and young people in South Australia, which I think every member of the South Australian community can be proud of. I am sure that the opposition will join us in that pride for our children and young people and the way they are going in their schooling.

NAPLAN is a useful assessment. It is certainly not the only measure of how our schools or our students are going, but it's a useful assessment. It's a standardised test that is assessed consistently across the country—across 20 domains, across four year levels—and identifies some critical evidence about how we are going.

Historically, it is true to say that for much of the previous decade South Australian schools hadn't been seeing the growth and hadn't been seeing the results that we would ideally desire. Our starting point was a position where in 2017 we were last or second last in more categories than any other state out of those 20 domains, and we were last out of all states in four out of the five categories for the year 3 students.

That was our starting point upon coming to government, but I have excellent news: in the last four years, we have seen significant growth—growth for students, growth for schools and growth for the state of South Australia. The schools for our year 3 students in South Australia over the period since have seen more than double the national growth average, outstripping gains in every other state. Indeed, similarly for our year 9 students we have been the only state where our results have gone forward.

It is tremendous to see that doubling of the national average of improvement in the year 3 NAPLAN results. There is one significant outcome. Of course, it is not just the broad mean across all the domains across all the year 3 students, particularly looking at how students are going at achieving higher bands and higher results. South Australia in 2021 achieved its highest ever percentage of students scoring in the highest band for reading in years 3 and 5, numeracy in years 5 and 7 and spelling in years 3 and 5.

This I would submit is a ringing endorsement of the evidence-based approach that the government has been taking to the delivery of early years education, particularly in our schooling system. When we were in opposition, in May, I think it was, of 2017, the Marshall Liberal opposition as it was then outlined a literacy guarantee—a stream of 10 programs of measures which we would roll out in our schools and which would focus on evidence-based approaches to the teaching of literacy that would underpin what followed.

Subsequently, we welcomed—I have acknowledged this before—a trial. Originally, it was going to be receptions, but then, upon suggestion from me amongst others, it was receptions and year 1s in 50 self-selecting schools. A phonics check was trialled, and it was an excellent decision to run that trial, and I have congratulated the member for Port Adelaide about that before. We had, of course, committed earlier to a rollout of all government schools, and we encouraged the former government to do that.

I think it was about four days before the election—after 10 months of pushing—Labor agreed with this too, which I welcomed because it meant that we had bipartisan support for the phonics four days before the election—maybe it was five; I apologise if I have got that wrong. It might have been a 20 per cent difference that gave you that extra day for the people of South Australia to know that Labor had that promise. We committed to it in the previous May, where all government schools would have this phonics check.

What we have seen that phonics check identify is not just students who are slipping through the gap but it has also been a wake-up call for many teachers about ensuring that they have the best practice available. What that has meant is that the check has identified certainly students who are slipping through the gaps, but it has also identified over the last four years significant improvement from 2018 to 2021 with 43 per cent of our year 1 students being at the mark to 67 per cent of our students being at the mark.

There is still further to go. There is still more work to do, but these students are getting the basics of reading right. They are doing an outstanding job in our schools. I congratulate all the teachers and all the education staff who have had such an integral role in improving these results, these outcomes, for South Australian children.