The LANTITE assesses aspects of personal literacy and numeracy proficiency of students in Australian initial teacher education (ITE) courses.

National implementation of the Test was a recommendation of the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report ‘Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers’ (recommendation 13).

The TEMAG report recommended that Higher Education Providers (‘HEP’) use a national literacy and numeracy test to demonstrate that all ITE students possess personal literacy and numeracy skills equivalent to the top 30 per cent of the Australian adult population.

In 2015, all Education Ministers agreed to amend the Accreditation of initial teacher education programs in Australia: Standards and Procedures to stipulate that, commencing from 1 July 2016, the test will be the means for demonstrating a student has met this standard. The test provides a nationally consistent way to measure aspects of the personal literacy and numeracy capabilities of ITE students.

Education Ministers agreed that the Australian Government would manage the delivery of LANTITE. The department is conducting a procurement process to select a supplier to deliver the LANTITE from January 2026 to June 2028.

The successful supplier will be required to develop, deliver, and administer the test. They will also be required to support the ongoing validity of the Test and maintain the Test instrument as a nationally consistent instrument for prospective and current ITE students to validly assess whether a person is in the top 30 per cent of the Australian adult population in relation to literacy and numeracy skills.

The supplier must be capable of delivering to all candidates who want to sit the test. In 2023, over 40,000 tests were taken.

The successful supplier of the Test will need to consider and provide the following elements:

A. Administer and deliver a Test that comprises of a literacy component and a numeracy component.

B. Provision and maintenance of a secure, online test management system to support test delivery and data collection in a high-stakes environment, in communication with the department. The system should be ready to use from January 2026.

C. User documentation and general technical support, including considering and granting reasonable adjustment arrangements, handling inquiries and complaints, and managing the appeals process for candidates in line with government policies.

D. Provision and management of physical test venues in metropolitan and regional locations, as agreed with the department that can administer the test through an online delivery system.

E. Ability to deliver or supply remote proctoring services so candidates can sit the test online smoothly, from any location with internet access, and communicate any incidents with the department promptly.

F. Provisions of test invigilators for physical test locations (including invigilator training and payment by the successful supplier).

G. Management of test registrations and test fee payments.

H. Reporting requirements including provision of results to individual candidates, education providers, teacher regulatory bodies (where applicable), and de-identified aggregated data to state, territory, and the Commonwealth education departments.

I. Test development and annual item refresh (develop new questions) to maintain the validity of the test by a suitably qualified panel of literacy and numeracy experts, including from the HEP sector, in communication with the department.

J. Ability to deliver the test in formats and environments that align and are compliant with the Level AA conformance of the latest version of Web Content Accessibility Standard, the Australian Standard AS-EN 301 549, and requirements set out in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).

K. Provision of onshore services (such as data storage) which comply with the Australian Government Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) and Information Security Manual (ISM).