[gavinlit]

If the educational outcomes have improved then credit should go wherever it's due. I don't know much about your secondary education system so can't really comment. Long term, it's got to be a good thing for the country.

One word of caution - improved test results don't always indicate improved learning. Sometimes they just indicate that teachers and students have had more time to become accustomed to the requirements of the testing. Again I can't comment because I'm not familiar with the testing.

Schools in my state have to sit a statewide literacy and numeracy examination in yrs 7 and yrs 8 (first two years of high school). It's common practice to not prepare students at all for the yr 7 examination and then prepare like hell for the yr 8 exam. That way the school has some very favourable 'value added' statistics. Exam results should be evaluated very very carefully.

Edit - anyway, congrats to you guys if it's heading in the right direction.