Education Minister Christopher Pyne on Sunday announced testing for up to 5000 students across seven capital cities and two regional locations would be launched from August.

Tasmania was left off the list, which includes Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin and Albury and Ballarat, despite having the worst educational outcomes in the country.

Tasmanian Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said Tasmania held its own testing regime for students graduating from the University of Tasmania.

‘‘The national literacy and numeracy exam for graduating teachers is being progressively rolled out across the country, with Tasmania expected to join the program in 2016,’’ he said.

‘‘The Hodgman Liberal government is committed to ensuring every Tasmanian has a good education.

‘‘That’s why we’re investing in literacy and numeracy teachers and training programs like the Core Skills for Work Program, which is about delivering real skills for real jobs, in areas including reading, writing, numeracy and problem solving.’’

Mr Pyne said the Australian Council for Educational Research developed and trialled the test in 2014.

‘‘Testing key aspects of the personal literacy and numeracy skills of aspiring teachers will assist higher education providers, teacher employers and the general public to have absolute confidence in the skills of graduating teachers,’’ he said.

‘‘For too long there have been public concerns about the variability in the quality of teaching graduates and in the effectiveness of existing programmes in preparing new teachers.’’