Fears schools may cheat to improve test performance The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said Ausfailure was in danger of becoming a ”nation of cheats” unless the national literacy and numeracy tests were monitored by external supervisors.
Mr McAlpine said the federal government’s reward payments for improved NAPLAN results would tempt schools, which administer the tests, to alter results to improve performance.
”Julia Gillard should pay for external exam supervision in every school to ensure the results are fair and genuine, in the same way we do the HSC. It is ludicrous these tests are done in a classroom with a teacher,” he said. ”There is no way to control the alteration to answers and yet these results are being used to make judgments on school performance.
”We don’t want Ausfailure to become a nation of cheats.”
Observers thought the sentiment was a little behind the times.
