States and territories need firm targets to boost academic results, Productivity Commission report says

The commission has recommended firm targets to improve student results in the next agreement, as governments have poured more funding into schools but seen little impact on literacy and numeracy scores.

Commissioner Natalie Siegel-Brown said targets do not guarantee success but they created a clear direction for reform and made governments accountable.

"Each year, almost 90,000 students do not meet minimum standards for reading or numeracy in NAPLAN," Ms Siegel-Brown said.

"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students in outer regional and remote Australia, and students of parents with low educational attainment are three times more likely to fall behind than other students.

"The commission recommends that each state and territory should set a target to reduce the share of students who are falling behind."

The current agreement, which expires in December, sets targets for states and territories around priority equity groups but a lack of data and reporting means they are not held accountable.

The commission has recommended, under the next agreement, governments should be required to fill the data gaps, outline their programs to lift student results and report annually on their progress.

Two of the initiatives under the current agreement, creating a unique student identifier to track students through their education path and online formative assessment, have not been achieved. Other initiatives have been achieved but it will take time for the benefits to flow through to education systems.

The commission has urged governments to make more concerted efforts to balance teacher and principal workloads so they can spend less time on administration and other non-core tasks.

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It comes after a national teacher workforce action plan was published last year with strategies to address the teacher shortage.

"Effective teaching is the single most influential 'in-school' factor for creating an effective learning environment," Ms Siegel-Brown said.

"Compared to many countries, our teachers work longer hours but have less time for activities that make a real difference in the classroom. Teacher shortages also mean we are asking many teachers to teach subjects they are not trained to teach."

Student wellbeing should be a greater focus in the next agreement because students who struggle with wellbeing often have difficulty engaging in school.

The commission recommended teachers should be supported to identify when poor behaviour may be communication of poor wellbeing, and having clear support pathways so teachers don't feel they need to shoulder all of the responsibility for students' wellbeing.

The next agreement should allow flexibility but also have increased accountability for and transparency of results, the report said.