National Year 6 and 10 ICT Literacy results 2008

11,000 kids were tested in October 2008, as part of the National Assessment Program (NAP) three-year cycle looking at the ICT literacy of Australian school children. The report on that assessment is published as 2008 National ICT Literacy Sample Assessment results for Year 6 and Year 10 students.

The assessment sample was 5,604 Year 6 students from 299 schools and 5,322 Year 10 students from 292 schools . The participating students were from both government and non-government schools. The assessment measured students’ ability to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, develop new understandings, and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society.

Results of the assessment show that nationally 57 per cent of Year 6 students reached or exceeded the Year 6 proficient standard and 66 percent of Year 10 students reached or exceeded the Year 10 proficient standard. This represents improvement on the 2005 assessment results of 8 percentage points for Year 6 students and 5 percentage points for Year 10 students. The proficient standard represents a ‘challenging but reasonable’ expectation for typical Year 6 and 10 students to have reached by the end of each of those years of study.

The report also found that a student’s socioeconomic background had the biggest effect on their performance, with 41 per cent of Year 6 students whose parents are from the “unskilled manual, office and sales” occupational groups attaining the proficient standard, compared to 72 per cent of students whose parents are from the “senior managers and professionals” occupational group. In Year 10 the corresponding figures are 52 per cent and 78 per cent.