Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Gichuhi is absolutely right: this does require a cooperative approach across the states and territories, who are, of course, primarily responsible for the operation of our school systems. We collaborate in a number of ways, in particular through the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, ACARA, to work to improve English-language skills. I'm pleased that in 2015 all ministers agreed to curriculum changes around Australia, which strengthened areas of the teaching around literacy, and also agreed to move NAPLAN online at the time, which is an important change because it will provide the capacity for faster and more accurate diagnostic reporting to teachers, making that a much more useful tool in the future for schools and individual teachers. We've also obtained support and agreement from the states and territories for a range of teacher training reforms which will ensure minimum literacy standards for future teaching graduates, as well as primary school teachers undertaking specialisations. We expect we will see more specialist English and literacy teachers entering primary schools into the future.