LANTITE: What It Is, When to Pass, and How to Prepare

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LANTITE is the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education, a national test every student in an accredited Australian teaching degree must pass to graduate and be employed as a teacher. It has two separate components, literacy and numeracy, each a two-hour sitting of 65 questions, administered by ACER. The pass standard is achievement equivalent to the top 30% of the Australian adult population. From 2025 there is no limit on attempts, and results never expire. The trap is timing: most providers require a pass before your final professional experience placement, not just before graduation.

1. What LANTITE is and why it exists

LANTITE (Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education) is a national test administered by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). Every student enrolled in an accredited initial teacher education (ITE) program in Australia must pass both components before they can graduate. Without it, you cannot complete your degree or be registered to teach.

It is not a test of your teaching ability or your subject knowledge. It assesses your own personal literacy and numeracy, the everyday reading, writing, and number skills a teacher needs in professional work. The standard is set at achievement equivalent to the top 30% of the Australian adult population in each area, a benchmark validated in 2017 against the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).

The point of the test is to confirm that every graduate teacher, regardless of subject area, meets a common floor of personal literacy and numeracy. A specialist music or PE teacher is held to the same numeracy standard as a maths teacher, which is why the numeracy component catches people who assumed it would not apply to them.

2. The two components: format and what they test

LANTITE has two components, sat in separate two-hour sessions. You do not have to sit them on the same day, and you can pass them in either order. Each component has 65 questions in selected-response (multiple choice) or short-answer format. There is no extended essay.

Literacy

The literacy component is a single section. Roughly half is reading comprehension drawn from texts a teacher would realistically encounter (school policies, student reports, professional communications), and the rest tests technical writing skills: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. The technical-skills items are where many candidates lose marks, especially anyone who relies on spell-check in everyday writing.

Numeracy

The numeracy component has two sections. Section 1 has 52 questions and you can use the on-screen calculator. Section 2 has 13 questions and the calculator is disabled. Once you move into Section 2 you cannot go back to Section 1, so manage your time in the first section deliberately.

3. When you must pass it (the timing trap)

The single most common LANTITE mistake is leaving it too late. Students treat it as a graduation formality and discover, often in their final year, that they cannot start a placement until they have passed.

Most ITE providers now require you to pass both components before your final professional experience placement, not merely before you graduate. The exact milestone varies by university and course: some Bachelor of Education programs set it before an earlier placement, and many Master of Teaching programs set it before the final internship. If you miss the milestone, your placement is blocked, and because placements are scheduled in fixed teaching periods, a missed window can delay your whole course by months.

A NSW note for 2026

From 1 August 2026, passing LANTITE also becomes a prerequisite for Conditional accreditation with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). If you intend to teach in NSW on a Conditional pathway, the test moves from a graduation requirement to an entry requirement. See our NSW teacher accreditation guide for the detail.

4. Cost, attempts, and resits

For 2026, the fee is $98 for a single component and $196 for both components, GST inclusive. The fee is payable every time you register for a component, so a resit costs the same again. Verify the current fee on ACER's site before booking, as it is reviewed annually.

From 2025, there is no limit on the number of attempts. You can sit a component as many times as you need to meet the standard. This is a change from the previous rule of one attempt plus two resits per component. Some universities still apply their own course-progression policies on top of the national rule, so check whether your provider attaches any conditions.

LANTITE runs in four two-week windows each year. The 2026 windows are:

• 9–22 February 2026
• 4–17 May 2026
• 3–16 August 2026
• 26 October – 8 November 2026

You can sit at a physical test centre or through remote online proctoring from home. Book as early as you can: centres and preferred sessions fill, particularly in the windows closest to common placement deadlines.

5. How to prepare (and who tends to struggle)

LANTITE is passable for the large majority of teaching students, but it is not a test you should walk into cold. Treat it like any standardised test: learn the format, practise under time pressure, and target your weak area.

Start with ACER's free official practice materials. These reflect the real question style and interface far more accurately than paid third-party courses, many of which overstate the test's difficulty. Sit a full timed practice component so the two-hour clock and the calculator/no-calculator split are familiar before test day.

Three groups tend to struggle, and each for a predictable reason:

A realistic plan is a few weeks of spaced, format-specific practice with at least one full timed run per component. If you pass first time, you are done; if not, you have a resit window in hand.

6. Accommodations and special testing conditions

If you have a disability, medical condition, or other circumstance that affects how you sit a test, you can apply for special testing conditions (reasonable adjustments) such as extra time, rest breaks, or assistive technology.

Apply through your ACER candidate account and submit supporting documentation (for example, a medical or psychological report) directly to ACER. Approvals take time to process, so apply well before the window you intend to sit in, not in the final days before booking. Adjustments are assessed against the documentation you provide, so make sure your evidence is current and specific about the support you need.

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