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NAPLAN and the role of edu-business: New governance, new privatisations and new partnerships in Australian education policy

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Abstract

This paper provides a critical analysis of the edu-businesses currently working in partnership with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to deliver the Commonwealth government policy initiative of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). These emerging public–private partnerships (PPPs) exemplify new heterarchical governance structures in Australia, where a network of public and private agents now contribute to education policy processes. In analysing the NAPLAN policy network, this account seeks to proffer a critical analysis on the evolving PPPs in Australia and ascertains in whose interests and with what outcomes these PPPs operate. The NAPLAN policy network is analysed in relation to the contemporary state and its changing modus operandi, in which I draw on the notions of heterarchies, networks and new governance structures in education to understand these developments. Network ethnography is employed to document the network of PPPs that are associated with NAPLAN and other government initiatives in Australia, and in particular, I reflect on the activities of Pearson and the Australian Council for Educational Research to problematise what these policy networks mean.

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Notes

  1. NAPLAN tests are conducted in May each year for all students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9. All students in the same year level are assessed on the same test items in the assessment domains of Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and Numeracy. The results of NAPLAN for every Australian school are displayed on the My School website, which allows comparisons to be made between statistically similar schools.

  2. ACARA is a Commonwealth statutory body that was established in 2008 by the Rudd/Gillard Labor government to lead the development of NAPLAN, My School and the Australian Curriculum. Independent from the Federal government, ACARA is jointly funded by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments and receives directions from the associated Ministers for Education through the Standing Council on School Education and Early Childhood (SCSEEC).

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  1. School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Anna Hogan

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  1. Anna Hogan
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Correspondence to Anna Hogan.

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Hogan, A. NAPLAN and the role of edu-business: New governance, new privatisations and new partnerships in Australian education policy. Aust. Educ. Res. 43, 93–110 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-014-0162-z

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