The New South Wales government will lobby education ministers nationwide to ditch digital NAPLAN writing exams and return to traditional pen and paper by 2028 in an effort to arrest plunging literacy standards.
Under the proposal, reported by ABC News NSW, testing authorities would decouple the writing assessment from the online testing regime that was progressively rolled out across Australian schools between 2018 and 2022. State education officials argue that the wholesale shift towards screen-based assessment has contributed to a demonstrable erosion in basic syntactical mastery, punctuation, and physical writing stamina among primary and early secondary students.
Ditching keyboards for composition
The proposed transition, earmarked for implementation by 2028, specifically targets the writing domain of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy, leaving reading, conventions of language, and numeracy online.
Education specialists backing the NSW initiative argue that keyboard-based composition fundamentally alters how young minds organise and execute long-form ideas. Research across cognitive development indicates that handwriting activates distinct neural pathways, compelling students to deliberate on word choice and grammatical structure before committing pencil to paper.
By contrast, the speed and convenience of typing can encourage superficial editing, disjointed expression, and reliance on screen mechanics. Literacy experts have noted that when students type under timed conditions without automatic spellchecks or predictive software, overall coherence frequently deteriorates more dramatically than in handwritten scripts.
Mounting evidence of a nationwide writing crisis
The push comes against a sobering backdrop of national testing data. Over the past decade, writing has consistently registered as the weakest and most stubborn performance metric within the national testing battery, with secondary students in Years 7 and 9 recording alarming declines in analytical and narrative competence.
Classroom teachers and curriculum specialists have repeatedly warned that the deprioritisation of handwriting in the formative primary years has left cohorts ill-prepared for senior secondary assessments. In New South Wales, the Higher School Certificate still largely demands that students write extended essays by hand across multiple gruelling two- and three-hour examinations.
Education analysts point out that students who spend years composing almost exclusively on screens suffer physical fatigue and reduced cognitive clarity when confronted with extensive handwriting tasks in their final school years.
Navigating the federal consensus hurdle
NSW faces a delicate diplomatic path through the national Education Ministers Meeting to enact the reform. Because NAPLAN is managed federally by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, any structural alteration to testing modalities requires broad multi-jurisdictional consensus.
Transitioning back to manual paper testing across thousands of school campuses nationwide will present logistical complications, including paper distribution, secure handling, and the manual scanning of millions of test booklets.
Nevertheless, NSW officials believe setting a 2028 deadline affords curriculum bodies sufficient runway to recalibrate rubrics and establish standardised marking infrastructure. If federal consensus stalls, NSW may explore bilateral accommodations to ensure its own classrooms reprioritise the pen.
