In September 2019, a comprehensive review of NAPLAN was announced to be jointly delivered by the state governments of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The purpose of the review was to identify what a standardised testing regime in Australian schools should deliver, assess how well NAPLAN achieves this, and identify short and longer-term improvements that can be made.

Key recommendations:

• A new standardised test should be introduced that includes the assessment of critical and creative thinking in STEM. This would replace the current NAP Science Literacy test conducted every three years. Critical and creative thinking is widely regarded as a key skill for the contemporary workforce. Assessment of critical and creative thinking in this way would place Australia as a world leader.
• The current testing of students in Year 9 should move to Year 10 to enable greater engagement and to provide students with a more accurate indicator of learning achievement prior to their commencement of senior secondary education.
• The test should be brought forward from May to as early as possible in the year so that results can be used more productively by schools and teachers. Students and teachers should also get results within one week of the test.
• Substantial changes should be made to the writing assessment to address long-standing criticisms that the current approach merely encouraged formulaic responses.
• National standardised tests should continue as universal rather than sample tests because of the valuable information they provide to schools as well as students and parents.
• NAPLAN is rebranded to Australian National Standardised Assessments (ANSA) to indicate the significant redevelopment of the national standardised assessment.