Australia’s school attendance crisis needs urgent national action
School attendance has been sliding for more than a decade, with more than a million Australian students now missing significant classroom time. Governments have set ambitious targets to reverse the trend, but meeting them will require a fundamental shift in approach.
Recent articles in Education
17 December 2025
The market lie at the heart of public education policy
Treating public schools as competitors in an education marketplace shifts blame downward, obscures chronic underfunding and corrodes the very purpose of public education.
12 December 2025
After the ATAR: keeping perspective and finding your next step
As ATAR results are released, there are practical ways for students and families to keep perspective, protect wellbeing and explore future options.
6 December 2025
Australia’s school bureaucracy is growing faster than classrooms
Administrative staffing in Australia’s public education system has grown far faster than student enrolments or teacher numbers. Unless governments act, promised school funding risks being absorbed by bureaucracy rather than improving learning and wellbeing.
29 November 2025
You can’t regulate your way to quality early childhood education
Recent safety failures have triggered tighter regulation in early childhood education and care. But compliance alone cannot deliver quality. Real reform begins with professionalising the workforce.
20 November 2025
Overworked, overburdened, and burning out: Australian teachers' workloads among the worst in OECD
Australian teachers have unsustainable workloads, and government responses have done little to ease their burden.
20 November 2025
A search for purpose, vision and identity in Australian universities
The Australian university sector has become disconnected from the national imagination and needs a compelling new vision for the future.
17 November 2025
How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees in 50 years?
Australians think students are being asked to pay far too much for their degrees. Just under half (47%) of Australians surveyed by YouGov in June 2025 believe a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years. When it comes to the cost of a degree, 58% believe a student should pay $5000 or less per year – less than a third of what arts students now pay.
3 November 2025
It’s official! Accounting tricks denied public schools more than $2b in funding in 2023
A new report by the National School Resourcing Board reveals that public schools lost more than $2 billion in funding in 2023 because of accounting tricks used by state governments under the Commonwealth-State funding agreements operating at the time.
1 November 2025
A collective voice for peace with justice
Earlier this year, the Sydney Peace Foundation separated from the University of Sydney after 27 years.
27 October 2025
Boosting equity and safety for Australia's children
In Australia, 37% of students aged between about 5 or 6 and 18 years go to private schools which charge fees – but while those schools are private, they are not run for profit.
25 October 2025
Indonesia’s security depends on educating the minds behind its machines
Indonesia is investing in its regional influence — purchasing new fighters, drones, frigates and billions in defence contracts — while allowing its classrooms to deteriorate.
24 October 2025
Australia has amongst the highest teacher shortages in the OECD
A new OECD report reveals that Australia’s education system is facing a diabolical staffing crisis. Since 2018, teacher shortages have soared leaving Australia among the worst-performing nations in the OECD.
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