5AA with Belinda Heggen

SUBJECTS: NAPLAN Testing; the AWU Scandal

E&OE................................

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Thank you Belinda.

Belinda Heggen: NAPLAN testing is a controversial one. What is your view on what is wrong with it?

Pyne: Well I support the NAPLAN testing; I don’t support the publication of the raw results on the MySchools website, and they’re two very important distinctions. Teachers also support NAPLAN testing if it is to be used as a diagnostic tool for principals and for teachers to improve the performance of their students. What many people in the education sector don’t support is the publication of that data on the MySchools website. Which one slows down its use as a diagnostic tool, but secondly puts enormous pressure on teachers to teach to the test and is causing all this stress in the education sector. Teachers shouldn’t be teaching to the test, but because of the publication of it they feel they have no choice to do so and the Coalition has vowed to remove the publication of the NAPLAN data on the MySchools website.

Heggen: So if you are elected to government next year, what sort of reporting regime would you bring in?

Pyne: Well the NAPLAN data would be available to a parent who asked for it, so schools always held that data. The Coalition Government introduced NAPLAN testing to be used by principals, by teachers and some of them published them in their annual reports. But if parents want to know the schools NAPLAN data, they’re perfectly entitled to ask for it. What we would publish is the improvement from year to year, so whether a school was improving or whether it was not improving in the NAPLAN testing, which takes the pressure off individual teachers and of course takes the pressure off the students who have had that pressure put on them by teachers who are concerned about whether the NAPLAN data will be used for their salary increases, or for their placements in schools and so forth.

Heggen: So what is the current reporting on the MySchools website? How in depth does it get to at the moment?

Pyne: Well you are able to access the NAPLAN results for your school and for, you can drill down to classes. And in fact, Julia Gillard once said that she wanted parents to be able to roust teachers for poor NAPLAN results. Now there are a whole host of reasons why one particular class doesn’t perform as well as another, it’s not always because of the teacher, often it is because principals put more difficult children with teachers that they know will perform better. That doesn’t mean the results will necessarily be better, but it means the teachers are going to get the most from the students. Now why should good performing teachers be then criticised by the Prime Minister through no fault of their own.

Heggen: You also say that there have been a spate of teachers cheating on the results.

Pyne: That’s right.

Heggen: Some teachers have asked students to sit out to try and skew the results too.

Pyne: One of the really wicked things about the NAPLAN testing at the moment is that because of the publication of the data some teachers have been found to be cheating and changing the results. But, worse than that I think, is that some students have been asked to stay home by schools and by teachers because they will lower the outcome for that particular class or school. Now, I have four children, all of whom are of school age. The idea of being told if you could keep one of those children home on a particular day because we don’t want them to do the test in case they skew the results is devastating for the parents, but even worse for the child, and that has to stop.

Heggen: Of course some parents take it upon themselves to keep their children home, not wanting them to go through the stress of sitting the test.

Pyne: Well they’re entitled to that. Parents can refuse to do the NAPLAN for their children, and they can keep their children home. That is different of course to a school asking a parent to keep a child at home because they don’t want that child to reduce their results. Now every student should be being tested for the NAPLAN so that we can find out if they need more assistance with literacy or with numeracy or with comprehension, that’s a decision that the teachers should then be able to make based on the data they are receiving, and that’s how they used to be used until Julia Gillard made it a punitive test to be published to impress goodness knows whom.

Heggen: Some parents will argue that we have the right to know exactly how our students, how are schools, are performing by comparison to other like schools. That we need to have as much information as possible at our fingertips.

Pyne: Well parents who want that information can access it. If a parent wants to ring a school or visit the principal and say I’d like to see your NAPLAN data they’re perfectly entitled to do so. Of course, they are also entitled to their own students’ NAPLAN results and if they think those results aren’t as good as they’d like them to be they can go and get the NAPLAN data from other schools in the neighbouring area and ask them how their NAPLAN results are. I don’t think that the MySchools website’s publication of NAPLAN data has made any difference at all to the schools that parents have chosen for their students.

Heggen: Well has the current Government brought in extra funds to those schools which have been shown to be struggling?

Pyne: Well tragically they abolished the Literacy and Numeracy vouchers from the Howard Government and replaced them with a new program. That cost $550 million and the Auditor General found this year, Belinda, that those schools that had the program that their results were no better or no worse than the schools that didn’t have the program.

Heggen: And what would a Coalition Government do with their results? Would you put in more money to those schools that are struggling?

Pyne: Well we intend to continue literacy and numeracy programs. We won’t deliver them the way the Government has through the states. We think there’s been a lot of wastage in administrative costs through the states. So we will announce exactly how we will do that before the next election. Under the Howard Government we funded the Literacy and Numeracy vouchers per student so that a student could apply for a Literacy and Numeracy voucher or could be recommended for one and then they would spend that with a tutor to improve their child’s outcomes.

Heggen: What’s it like in Federal Parliament this week? It’s always labelled by journalists as a crazy week this final sitting of Parliament for the year.

Pyne: Unfortunately, Belinda, because of the nature of this Government we always feel like we are in a sense of crisis. It’s a toxic Parliament and I think most people are looking forward to an election so they can clear the air and at least elect a government with a clear majority.

Heggen: Now as you heard me say in the intro we are going to have ‘slush fund’ information for dummies session within the next half an hour.

Pyne: Chris Kenny will do a good job of that.

Heggen: Now you heard the Prime Minister yesterday in Parliament, I’m describing her at her deflective best, what she’s not responsible for. I said she’s not responsible for the Kurt Tippett side deal, she should have also said she’s not responsible for George Michael not appearing in his national tour of Australia. What else is she possibly not responsible for?

Pyne: Look the Prime Minister, Belinda, always has an excuse as to why everything is somebody else’s fault and not hers. I mean she’s got more excuses that a year 9 maths class.

Heggen: (Laughs).

Pyne: My favourite of those of course is that the tram got a flat tyre or the dog ate my homework! I mean, Julia Gillard can never be pinned down but I have a feeling that the walls are closing in on this issue of the AWU slush fund and the Prime Minister has a lot more questions to answer today in about ten minutes and for the rest of the week.

Heggen: Is there a smoking gun though?

Pyne: Well the Coalition isn’t looking for a smoking gun. The Coalition is looking for the Prime Minister to actually clear the air about this extraordinary fraud in the early 1990s involving Bruce Wilson, her then boyfriend, and her involvement with the setting up of the slush fund, her knowledge of the bank accounts, her failure to abide by the union rules which she was intimately aware of. And this goes very much to her integrity as Prime Minister because if she is prepared to not tell the truth about what happened when she was a solicitor, and remember she exited the firm when this was found out, then that does affect how we would think of her today as a Prime Minister.

Heggen: Christopher Pyne, I know you need to get into the House. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

Pyne: It’s a pleasure.

ENDS