Last week’s NAPLAN results landed with their usual media splash. There were headlines worrying about the significant proportions of students below certain benchmarks and specific questions about maths results for students in Year 3. One important element missing from the debate so far has been how students from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling further behind their advantaged peers.
Thu 13 Aug 2026 11.14 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Last week’s NAPLAN results landed with their usual media splash. There were headlines worrying about the significant proportions of students below certain benchmarks and specific questions about maths results for students in Year 3.
One important element missing from the debate so far has been how students from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling further behind their advantaged peers.
This gap was already a problem before the latest data. But the most recent results show how things are getting worse.
Many research studies and decades of school results tell us there is a “learning gap” between advantaged and disadvantaged students in Australia.
What is less clear is how much this gap is changing over time.
For a May 2026 report, we developed a methodology that allowed us to illustrate gaps between students from different socioeconomic groups.
We converted NAPLAN scores into years and months of learning, relative to average levels of achievement for each year level. We called this “equivalent years of learning”. So, instead of comparing students by achievement bands or results, we can look at their achievement in terms of the amount of years and months that set them apart from other groups of students.
We then used this measure to compare the NAPLAN results of students whose parents did not finish school, versus those who went on to university study. Parents’ level of education is often used as a proxy for a students’ socioeconomic background in combination with other variables.
In our report, we found large, persistent and growing learning gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students in Australia.
We have now incorporated the latest NAPLAN results into our analysis. This shows us how gaps in reading continue to grow, particularly during high school.
Here, we focus on the last four years because in 2023, major changes to NAPLAN testing and reporting were introduced.
In 2023, the reading skills of Year 3 students whose parents did not complete school were one year and ten months behind the skills of students whose parents completed a bachelor’s degree or above. This year’s results show the gap has widened to two years and two months.
In high school these gaps are even wider and growing faster. For Year 7 they have gone from four years and 11 months in 2023 to five years and six months in 2026. For Year 9s, they have grown from six years to six years and eight months.
In the case of numeracy, learning gaps have narrowed slightly in primary schools over the last four years – particularly among students in Year 5. Here, the learning gap between students whose parents did not complete school and students whose parents completed a bachelor’s degree or above decreased from two years and ten months in 2023 to two years and five months in 2026.
In high schools, numeracy gaps are growing fast, without any evident improvements for disadvantaged students.
The numeracy gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in Year 7 grew from five years and three months in 2023 to five years and eleven months in 2026. For Year 9s it increased from six years and eight months to seven years and nine months.
What we are seeing is that achievement differences emerge early, and then widen in later year levels.
The consequences of this reach beyond NAPLAN and other school results to students’ opportunities after school. Research shows there are broader social and economic consequences for those left behind, including reduced productivity, entrenched disadvantage, and weakened cohesion across society as a whole.
Addressing educational inequality is obviously not an easy fix – it continues to be an issue in many countries around the world, despite decades of national and international commitments.
The persistent and growing learning gaps observed over the last 20 years in Australia suggest the issues are structural rather than linked to short-term policies or factors.
In particular, my upcoming research suggests greater attention must be paid to the increasing concentration of disadvantaged students in already disadvantaged schools.
These schools and communities face the greatest challenges and therefore require targeted and effective support.
“Full-service schools” offer a promising approach here. These provide much more than lessons and extra-curricular activities. They provide services for student health, learning and wellbeing in partnership with community services. Research has shown that when implemented effectively, these models are cost-effective at lifting student attendance, engagement, learning, health and wellbeing.
This won’t necessarily address all the complex factors at play. But in order to reverse these trends, governments need to ensure every school in Australia can give students the chance to reach their full potential, no matter the sector or the location.
Andres Molina, Senior Research Fellow, Mitchell Institute/Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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