Australia's new My School 2.0 website promotes school transparency

By eGovInnovation Editors | Mar 7, 2011

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AUSTRALIA -- Australia's My School 2.0 website is now live, taking transparency and accountability to a new level for every school in the country, School Education Minister Peter Garrett said. School Education Minister Peter Garrett said.

“For the first time we have new information on how much funding is going into schools to educate students, information about student progress in literacy and numeracy, and how each school compares to schools in similar communities,” Garrett said.

“My School 2.0 will encourage informed debate across the community about education in Australia,” he added.

Key improvements to the My School 2.0 website include: data about growth in student achievement in National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing, data about school finances, a more accurate method of calculating the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA), new graphical methods of displaying NAPLAN results, security features to ensure that data is used appropriately.

With three years of NAPLAN data now available, My School 2.0 will also show trends in student performance in literacy and numeracy – this is new information available for everyone to see.

“The Gillard Government understands that literacy and numeracy are the building blocks of a great education, that’s why we committed $550 million for a National Partnership Agreement with States and Territories specifically aimed at improving literacy and numeracy,”  Garrett said. “Early signs through the NAPLAN results on My School 2.0 are positive, showing that our unprecedented investment in improving literacy and numeracy is having an impact.

My School has been incredibly popular, with more 4.6 million site visits since it was launched last year.