THE National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy results were released this month, showing some holes in Tasmania's education system.
Tasmania remains middle of the pack on a national scale but year 7 students showed the weakest results.
Several standout reports were issued statewide however, including 99 per cent of St Partick's College year nine students meeting the minimum requirement for numeracy.
At Table Cape Primary School 91.9 per cent of pupils reached all minimum requirements compared to an average of 71.5 per cent in the previous three years.
A collated report just released presented all NAPLAN results for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students in each state and territory for reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy.
While the collected results across the state were consistently slightly below the national average, acting education and skills minister Lisa Singh said Tasmania was keeping pace with the rest of the country.
"We don't expect overnight changes and our results have remained stable in all but two measures," Ms Singh said.
"We have significantly improved in year 5 reading compared with 2008.
"Our year 7 results are disappointing and are an area for future focus, especially in reading and numeracy."
The profile of each school, government and non-government, will provide accurate data on individual school performance. The school profiles will include school level results from the 2008 and 2009 literacy and numeracy assessments, painting a much clearer picture of school performance around the country.
Earlier this year Premier David Bartlett announced that Tasmania's first 2008 NAPLAN results showed Tasmania was performing at about the middle of the pack overall, with results in year 3 reading, writing and numeracy placing the State among the best in Australia.
"We know from previous assessment programs that there may be fluctuations from one year to the next, largely because of cohort and measurement error effects, but the overall trend will be upwards."
St Patrick's College principal Simon Cobiac said that overall he was happy with the school's performance but the result for year 9 literacy, five per cent higher than the Tasmanian average, was very pleasing.
"The NAPLAN testing information is part of the total assessment of students and should be viewed alongside other information which gives a richer picture of overall student learning and engagement in learning processes," Mr Cobiac said.
An ambitious goal for Tasmania to have the best literacy and numeracy skills in the nation by 2016 was deemed "firm and achievable" by Mr Bartlett, who committed $50 million to a Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap program.