ACT Education Department Keeps Phonics Check Results Confidential
The Australian Capital Territory government has confirmed it will not release comprehensive results from the Year 1 phonics check, a key accountability measure within its Stronger Foundations literacy program. This decision places Canberra at odds with several other Australian states that publicly disclose similar educational data.
Literacy Reform Program Background
Over the past two years, the ACT government has been implementing significant reforms to how young students acquire fundamental literacy skills. The Stronger Foundations initiative emerged in response to widespread calls for a more consistent, evidence-based approach to reading instruction across the territory.
In 2025, all Year 1 students in Canberra completed a systematic phonics assessment designed to evaluate their understanding of letter-sound relationships. This testing forms a crucial component of learning to decode words accurately, moving away from guesswork based on contextual clues like pictures or sentence patterns.
Government's Justification for Non-Disclosure
An ACT government spokesperson explained that the decision aligns with recommendations from the Literacy and Numeracy Education Expert Panel. "This is to prevent the check from becoming a high-stakes test that can impact on student outcomes and wellbeing," the spokesperson stated.
"The intent of the phonics check is to provide teachers with quality information to support in-class teaching practices and help students learn effectively," they added, emphasizing the assessment's primary purpose as an instructional tool rather than a public accountability metric.
The spokesperson confirmed that the government has accepted the expert panel's advice that all collected assessment data should remain unpublished to avoid creating "league tables" that could potentially stigmatize schools or students.
National Context and Transparency Debate
While other jurisdictions including South Australia and New South Wales publish statewide phonics test results to monitor literacy intervention progress, the ACT will only disclose participation rates at the national level. This approach has ignited considerable discussion among education advocates and policy analysts.
Trisha Jha, research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, highlighted that published results typically show the percentage of students meeting expected standards. "This is something that the ACT community has taken quite seriously," Jha observed. "Many people have conducted analyses suggesting something isn't quite right with student outcomes in the ACT. How does the public know that the policy is on track? That's a pretty important part of taking the data seriously."
Calls for Greater Accountability
Jess Del Rio, co-founder of the Alliance for Evidence-Based Education, has publicly advocated for transparency regarding the phonics check results. She argues that publishing territory-wide data would enable the community to monitor progress and verify that early intervention strategies are effectively reaching students who need support.
"Transparency is not about blame; it is about learning, accountability and continuous improvement," Del Rio asserted, capturing the essence of the ongoing debate between educational privacy and public accountability.
This tension between protecting student wellbeing and maintaining transparent educational outcomes continues to shape discussions about literacy policy implementation in the Australian Capital Territory, with implications for how educational success is measured and communicated to the broader community.
