This Australia Institute report exposes the systemic failure of the ACT's primary education system and offers recommendations on how to rejuvenate the sector.

The report compared the NAPLAN results of twenty-four high socio-economic primary schools in the ACT between 2008 and 2016 and found the government schools had underperformed throughout the period, a result consistent with the findings from the recent ACT Auditor-General’s report.

The report also found there has been a deterioration in the relative performance of both government and non-government schools in recent years.