New NAPLAN results reveal a stark gap remains between the educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
Student outcomes cannot improve without more federal funding, state education ministers said, after national test results published Wednesday showed one third of children overall are failing to meet basic literacy and numeracy standards.
Federal ministers are also facing calls for the Commonwealth to direct funding towards public schools after the results showed wide disparities among disadvantaged groups.
More than 30 per cent of Indigenous students were rated as needing additional support, compared to less than 10 per cent of non-Indigenous students
A divide between urban and rural schools emerged, with 24 per cent of students from very remote schools being rated as "strong" or "exceeding" compared to 70.7 per cent of students from major city schools.
Almost 1.3 million students in year three, five, seven and nine received their results from the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) on Wednesday.
Across every year group, about one in three fell short of expectations.
SNAICC - National Voice for our Children, said the results highlighted the importance of access to appropriate early education and care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
They reveal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are failing at four times the rate of non-Indigenous classmates. Up to 90 per cent of students in remote communities are failing to reach minimum standards of literacy and numeracy," SNAICC said in a statement on Wednesday.
SNAICC chief executive Catherine Liddle said the results should be a wake-up call to all those in charge of Australian education systems.
"The tragedy is we know what works. Improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children starts in the early years," Ms Liddle said.
"We know our children are nearly twice as likely to be falling behind in their developmental milestones than other children when they start school. That only makes it more difficult on that child and educators to get our children meeting NAPLAN standards.
"This is evidenced by this year's results showing three out of four Indigenous children in remote communities require remedial intervention."
Ms Liddle noted Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare said "'your chances in life shouldn't depend on your parents' pay packet or the colour of your skin'... but these results show that's still the case".
"We need to look at what works best to close the gap on education outcomes for our children, and that means working with the Aboriginal community-controlled (ACCO) sector to increase access to early childhood education and services," she said.
"Programs such as Early Years Support, a pilot program supporting ACCO early education and care centres, need sustained funding. This program has had great success yet funding runs out at the end of the year.
"Where governments are working in genuine partnership with ACCO's, we are seeing positive results and improved life outcomes for our children. Recognising our expertise by supporting our community-controlled services is the only way we will close the gap."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said all governments had a responsibility to improve student performance.
"These are alarming results and we certainly need to do better with states and territories," he told the ABC on Wednesday.
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said states could not help students without more federal money.
The Commonwealth has urged all states to sign onto its Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, which will provide support and an additional $16 billion in funding with the hopes of increasing the number of year 12 finishers.
The Northern Territory and West Australian governments have agreed, but other jurisdictions are holding out as negotiations continue over the funding needed to reach the Schooling Resource Standard.
The measure, recommended by David Gonski in his 2011 review of the Australian education system, estimates how much total public funding a school requires to meet its students' needs.
NSW is hoping the federal government will increase its contribution to 25 per cent from its offer of 22.5 per cent.
Without this lift, the state government cannot scale up pre-existing programs that help students, such as small group tutoring.
"The Commonwealth government is not doing its bit and we need them to do that in order for us to roll this out everywhere to kids that need it and deserve it," Ms Car told reporters in Sydney.
More government funding should also be directed at public schools, rather than their private counterparts, Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll has said.
The Commonwealth's proposed deal would only offer Victorian public school students about $1000 each.
"If we are going to fulfil the dream of Gonski and have a needs-based ... education system, we need the Commonwealth to put a lot more funding into public education," Mr Carroll said.
Tasmanian Education Minister Jo Palmer lauded her state's promising results but said the test was not the only benchmark for learning, while South Australian counterpart Blair Boyer said promising trends were beginning to emerge.
The 2024 outcomes show no significant difference in average scores compared to the year before, but significant demographic gaps remain.
In both reading and numeracy, about one in three First Nations children tested in the "needs additional support" proficiency level compared to one in 10 non-Indigenous students.
Australian Education Union federal president Correna Haythorpe said the results were a damning indictment on the failure of governments to fully fund public schools.
"Australia cannot close achievement gaps without closing resourcing gaps," she said.
With AAP.
