Education is back on the agenda in Australia – at last.

Education is back on the agenda in Australia. The 21 May election result has spearheaded discussion about much-needed changes to the education landscape, with the Federal Education Minister Jason Clare indicating that his top priorities include boosting the results of Australian school students against international benchmarks and revisiting the needs-based Gonski reforms that aimed to end inequities in the distribution of public money.

Media coverage about education in Australia has increased with discussion about teacher shortages, school funding, the national curriculum, mental health and well-being of children, principals and teachers attracting headlines. Maintaining sustained attention to these issues are vital, as is providing solutions.

This spirited and healthy debate feeds well into Australia’s contribution to the United Nations’ Transforming Education Summit this September.  The Summit is looking to mobilise political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education globally. This includes taking stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 which focuses on education.

One of the main tasks facing the new Government is the negotiation of the National School Reform Agreement. The Productivity Commission is currently reviewing the agreement. The Australian Learning Lecture, together with Waiting for Gonski authors Chris Bonnor and Tom Greenwell, has made a submission to the review, as you will read in this newsletter.

This submission is the start of our contribution to the national debate about equity in education. We are currently working to produce a paper that will XXXX debunk many of the myths that hold reform back.

On other fronts, we will soon launch a social media campaign to promote The Future School and the fabulous videos that are available on the ALL website. We are making headway with our focus on passion, building on the passion kit  and pilot program we ran in Victoria in 2019. Both followed an ALL survey which showed that many schools did not know the individual interests of their students, nor did they see the link between using passion to inspire deep learning. The next steps will include extending the passion kit with examples of how passion can be and is being used to support and extend learner agency.

We hope you enjoy reading the newsletter. As always, we welcome your contributions and comments, and invite you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.