Naplan Testing Resumes After Digital Platform Glitch Disrupts Students
Schools across Australia were instructed to resume Naplan testing more than an hour after being told to "pause" the digital assessment, causing disruption for the 1.4 million students participating. The issue, which occurred on the first day of the nationwide literacy and numeracy tests for years 3, 5, 7, and 9, prevented some students from logging into the online platform. An education expert described the situation as a "really unfortunate mess".
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) confirmed the issue had been resolved and issued an apology to schools and students.
"Naplan testing has now resumed following a widespread issue earlier this morning, which affected students being able to log on to the online platform to complete their assessments," the statement read. "We apologise for the disruption to students and schools ... We continue to monitor the platform to ensure students are able to complete their assessments without further issues."
Earlier in the day, Acara had announced a pause in testing while the issue was "urgently investigated" by its technology provider, Education Services Australia. This pause led to backlash from parents and carers on social media. Acara also stated that schools were being provided with support and advice to minimize the impact on students.
Naplan 2026 Called a ‘Mess’ Amid Technical Difficulties
Late Wednesday morning, several schools posted on social media to inform parents and carers that the tests would be delayed due to the outages. While some tests proceeded unaffected, others were postponed to Thursday depending on access to the digital platform.
Erskine Park High School in western Sydney posted on Facebook: "Due to technical issues with the Naplan online server, a number of schools, including ours, were unable to access Naplan today. An updated timeline will be shared."
Rooty Hill Public School, also in western Sydney, announced it would postpone Naplan assessments due to the "statewide" issues. Sydney’s International Grammar School reported receiving guidance from Acara that writing tests for years 3 and 5 would "resume tomorrow."
Associate Professor in learning analytics at Adelaide University, Vitomir Kovanovic, described the situation as a "really unfortunate mess."
"It’s a very tricky system to test in advance … and there’s no going back if you mess up like this," he said. "Even if you give [students] another test, it will always look unfair if one student could log in and one couldn’t."
Victoria’s shadow education minister, Brad Rowsell, stated that a "legitimate question" must be asked about the reliability of this year’s Naplan dataset given the "stuff up."
Server Error Identified as Cause of Disruption
Prior to the tests, parents received a 35-page guide detailing the installation of a locked-down browser required for the assessments. This browser prevents students from accessing other applications or websites during testing. The guide indicated that the browser would be installed by the school technical support officer, but students using personal devices would need assistance to set up their devices.
Reports on social media indicated that students encountered an error message stating "communication to the server has been lost" during the tests.
Approximately 1.4 million students are expected to complete this year’s Naplan tests, which transitioned to fully online in 2022 after trials away from paper began in 2016. However, Year 3 writing tests continue to be completed on paper.
In 2019, the Victorian government allowed schools to return to pen-and-paper assessments following Naplan disruptions.
Professor of political education at the University of Sydney, Murray Print, commented on the challenges of reverting to paper testing.
"Naplan is a census assessment, so there are literally tens of thousands of students who are participating in this," he said. "If we were to revert to pencil and paper, it would take an inordinate amount of time in order to get the data back and teachers wouldn’t be able to use the information effectively by the time they received it. What this does suggest is we need a rigorous system and the organisations involved need to be well and truly resourced to do the job effectively."
Shadow education minister Julian Leeser revealed he had written to his counterpart, Jason Clare, posing 16 questions, including how fairness would be ensured for students whose tests were interrupted compared to those who completed them normally.
"This … creates deep systemic problems," he said. "This failure could skew the entire dataset."
