All educational organisations maintain a body of policies be they administrative, teaching, human resource, legal or some other type. Combined, they help create the effective operation of educational institutions and the effectiveness of the learning which occurs in them.

Such policies do not simply appear. They are created following reviews of existing processes and procedures and usually following some level of research locally, within the wider Australia setting or internationally. In many cases, people have opportunities for input prior to any final deliberations. International information is also becoming more widely accessible and used. Most major policies follow reports coming from reviews and related research.

Most reports, research data and policies are now easily accessible either online or in a format that is able to be downloaded for later reference.

This page looks at special reviews, reports and other documentation from a national perspective. These may be used in policy development in Australia, provide insights into, or linkages with, similar concerns and possible solutions in other countries. Information is also provided about the educational policies of a range of political parties in Australia.

The First Page looks at education policy sources in all states & territories, state & territory specific reviews and reports and some general information.

The Third Page contains policy documents and links from a range of international sources. Where possible, connections to similar interests in Australia, are a major factor in their inclusion.

Related pages include Conferences, Education Journals, Parent Involvement and Headlines.

Special Reviews, Reports, …

Note : Also check the State/Territory links for other reviews, reports and documents that refer to individual states and territories.

Australian

• Beyond the Classroom : How Parents Influence Their Children’s Education
  ‘In this monograph, Alison Rich examines the different ways that parents influence their children’s education. The components of parental influence are discussed under three main headings : parental resources, parental involvement and parental support’. CIS.
• Challenges for Australian Education : Results from PISA 2009
  ‘The Australian report was written by Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Marina Nicholas, Kylie Hillman and Sarah Buckley’. ACER
• Chaplaincy Program
  An Overview of the program to date and access to the Guidelines and Documents
• Designing for Learning : Online Social Networks as a Classroom Environment
  ‘An Australian article investigating the use of online social media as a learning environment. Gail Casey, Terry Evanss’.
• Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum
  ‘This handbook is aimed at educational practitioners and school leaders in both primary and secondary schools who are interested in creative and critical uses of technology in the classroom’. Download in PDF Format here.
• Educating the Disadvantaged
  ‘Social disadvantage does not spell educational disadvantage. Every child can succeed at school if education providers take the right approach, says a new report’.
• How and Why Has Teacher Quality Changed in Australia ?
  ‘Examines how the quality of the Australian teaching profession has changed over two decades, and [its] causes’.
• In Teachers’ Hands
  ‘Investigated the link between children’s growth in English literacy in the early years of schooling and their teachers’ classroom teaching practices’. PDF document, video chat and more.
• Key Factors Influencing Educational Outcomes for Indigenous Students …
  ‘This presentation considers the intrinsic link between health and education and the benefits of collaborative research for improving the education and life outcomes of Indigenous children’. ACER Conference report.
• Lessons from My School
  ‘Presents analyses of the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN] data and data on other indicators that are made available through the My School website’. Derby Voon, Paul W. Miller [Australian Economic Review].
• Measuring Educational Quality
  ‘What lessons can Australia learn from recent changes in US education policy ? At this Grattan Institute event, Dr Brian Stecher, discussed recent changes in education policy in the United States, including the growth of charter schools, the revision of national curriculum standards and assessments, the development of teacher and principal evaluation systems, the growing interest in formative assessments and data use for instructional planning, and the use of test-based accountability as a tool for reform’. Podcast and Transcript available.
• National Professional Standards for Teachers
  ‘Education Ministers announced the release of the National Professional Standards for Teachers on 9 February 2011. The Standards will promote excellence in teaching and provide a nationally consistent basis for recognising quality teaching. They make explicit what teachers should know, be able to do and what is expected of effective teachers across their career’.
• National Safe Schools Framework, 2011 revision
  Report released by MCEEDYA.
• NBN : Guide for Consumers
  ‘Designed to offer all Australians information about the National Broadband Network, NBN: : Guide for Consumers is available online, and is fully accessible with web, print, audio and Auslan versions’.
• Promoting Positive Education and Care Transitions for Children
  ‘This resource sheet is a review of research regarding children’s transition from home, to early childhood education and care services and then to school, with a specific focus upon both children and parents’ experiences of those transitions. Kate Rosier, Myfanwy McDonald’.
• Quality Education
  The Case for an Education Revolution in Our Schools‘Report calling for a culture of high expectations for students and teachers’. From the DEEWR. A Word Format Version here.
• Quality is the Key
  Critical Issues in Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Vocational Education and Training. ‘Identifies what individual learners and industry clients want from vocational education and training’.
  You now have to be able to log in to access NCVER reports, though registration is Free.
• Reading in a Time of Change
  ‘In this inaugural Meanland event [a collaboration between literary journals Meanjin and Overland], Marieke Hardy, Sherman Young, [and in Part 2] Margaret Simons and Peter Craven discuss the impact of new technology, economic change and shifting notions of intellectual property on reading and writing in Australia’. Video presentations.
• Recognising and Rewarding Good Teachers
  ‘Dr Ingvarson argues that, while there is widespread agreement that Australia needs to place greater value on teachers’ work, simply paying teachers more will not achieve this’.
• Research Conferences, ACER
  Information about the 2010 Conference. Also provides links to all conferences [with papers in PDF format] to 1997.
• Research Reports
  ‘The AITSL [previously Teaching Australia] site’.
• School Funding, Choice and Equity
  ‘School funding is plagued by inconsistencies and divisiveness. Its complexity has led to widespread misinformation and perceptions of inequity. Existing models of government school funding tend to have historical and political foundations rather than clear objectives or rationales. School funding ought to have three main objectives : equity, efficiency and excellence. These goals are not being achieved in the current system’ Jennifer Buckingham, CIS.
• Schools Workforce : Productivity Commission Research Report
  ‘In this report, the Productivity Commission proposes a package of reforms that gives priority to improving teacher quality, reducing teacher shortages, ameliorating educational disadvantage, and strengthening the use of evaluation and research in policy making. Many of the recommended reforms would raise the attractiveness of teaching as a profession, and so help to turn around the widely held perception that the status of teachers has declined ’.
• Shape of the Australian Curriculum
  English, Mathematics, Science and History; National Curriculum Board. ‘The National Curriculum Board has reached a major milestone in developing the Australian curriculum. They have now released reports covering the overall goals and objectives of the National Curriculum, as well as individual reports for English, Mathematics, Science and History. Also a summary of Board work from its inception in April 2008 to May 2009’. Individual section reports are found here.
• Simon Marginson on The International Student Crisis
  ‘Australia is the only developed nation that now has falling numbers of international students. Professor Simon Marginson [Higher Education, University of Melbourne] speaks to SlowTV’s Nick Feik about the impact this will have on a higher education system that has come to rely heavily on its international student income’. Video or audio.
• Staff in Australia’s Schools 2010 : Main Report On The Survey
  ‘The survey is intended to provide a detailed picture of the Australian teacher workforce, and to gather information to assist in future planning of the workforce. It is also designed to provide comparative and updated data following on from the first SiAS survey conducted in 2006-07’. ACER/DEEWR.
• Teachers and the Waiting Game
  Why Decentralisation is Vital for Public Schools. ‘Paper arguing that centralised staffing systems benefit teacher unions to the detriment of students and the majority of teachers’.
• The 2011 Horizon Report [Australian Policy Online]
  ‘The annual Horizon Report seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education’.
• The Arts and Australian Education : Realising potential
  AER 58 released January 2011 by ACER.
• The Comparative Performance of Australia As a Knowledge Nation
  A Chifley Centre Report. A complete report on which the Labor Party based much of their original Knowledge Nation Policy.
• The Global Positioning of Australian Higher Education
  Where to From Here ? ‘This paper is about the global positioning of Australian higher education 6 past, present and future’.
• The Leadership Challenge
  Improving Learning in Schools. ‘Arguing that school leadership has become too complex a task for a single person’.
• The New Middle Class and Education
  Alan Barcan. ‘Nowadays, few academics write books on contemporary educational problems; fewer still analyse the socio-historical context of these problems’.
• The Power of Expectation [ACER]
  Geoff N Masters, Australian Council for Educational Research.
• The Rise of Religious Schools in Australia
  ‘One of the defining changes of the educational landscape in Australia over the last two decades is the growth in the number and variety of religious schools’
• Touching the Future
  Building Skills for Life and Work. Johanna Wyn, University of Melbourne. Abstract and document in PDF format.
• Understanding Life Satisfaction and the Education Puzzle
  ‘This 31-page paper estimates the partial effect of educational achievement on different life satisfactions in Australia and how this differs by age group. Cathy Gong et al’.
• Value-added Measures for School Improvement
  ‘Discussing the concept of value-added measures for evaluating school improvement and looking at international research on the subject’.
• Vocational Education and Training Workforce
  Draft Report done for the Productivity Commission. You can download The Report here. There is also a copy available in Word format.
• Welcome to the Digital Education Revolution
  ‘A major part of the Australian Government Education Revolution. The aim of the program is to contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching and learning in Australian schools that will prepare students for further education, training, jobs of the future and to live and work in a digital world’. The implementation of the DER and its associated programs and initiatives, continues to be guided by the DER Strategic Plan.
• Who gets the ‘gift of time’ in Australia ? Exploring Delayed Primary School Entry [Australian Policy Online]
  ‘Little is known about the factors associated with delayed school entry in Australia. In this paper we begin to fill this gap in the Australian research using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children’. Mario Fiorini, Matthew Taylor, Ben Edwards [Australian Review of Public Affair]s
• Why Ranking Schools Would do More Harm than Good
  ‘Merits and demerits of national performance testing for schools’. Australian Education Union.

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Federal Education Reviews & Reports

• A Digital Education Revolution
  ‘ACER and education.au supported by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, presented a series of symposia to explore and illuminate the possibilities and the realities of the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution’. This is a paper detailing these.
• Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education
  Link provides you with a copy of the full report. You can download either a Summary or individual sections from this link.
• Initial Teacher Education Program Accreditation
  ‘The Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs [MCEECDYA] has agreed to establish national accreditation of initial teacher education programs. Submissions received are published on the AITSL website where permission to do so has been given, along with the Consultation Report [opens in a new window]’.
• Empowering Local Schools
  ‘The objective of this initiative is to empower participating schools to make decisions at a local level supporting them to better respond to the needs of students and the school community and provide services designed to assist their students to achieve their best educational outcomes’.
• Inquiry into Teacher Education
  ‘2007. The Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training tabled its report on the inquiry into Teacher Education entitled Top of the Class’. Documents in PDF format.
• Lifelong Learning In Australia
• Smarter Schools
  ‘The National Key Reform Projects are supporting states and territories to implement the Smarter Schools National Partnership reforms’.

MCEECDYA Taskforces & Reports

MCEECDYA was previously known by the acronym MCEETYA.

• Adelaide Declaration on National Goals For Schooling in the 21st Century
• Interstate Student Data Transfer Note
  ‘A joint initiative between the Australian Government, State and Territory Education Departments, and the independent and Catholic education sectors’.
• National Protocols …
  For Higher Education Approval Processes. Framework and development of a set of National Protocols.
• National Report on Schooling in Australia
  Select from publications.
• Rewarding Quality Teaching Report
• MCEECDYA - Publications
  PDF format publications.
• Stepping Forward - Improving Pathways for all Young People

• Online Teaching and Learning In Higher Education : A Case Study
• Reporting on Student and School Achievement
  Peter Cuttance. Full text.
• Research on Performance Pay For Teachers
  ‘Overview of current pay arrangements for teachers in Australian schools, particularly in relation to performance-based pay; attitudes to performance-based pay for teachers; and the results of the introduction of performance-based pay arrangements for teachers both in Australia if applicable and internationally’.
• Review of Teaching and Teacher Education
  Interim report.
• Rural Access - Equity - Excellence
  In the Education Revolution. ‘Submission to the Higher Education Review by 10 members of the Australia 2020 Summit’.
• School Innovation : Pathway to The Knowledge Society
  2001. This was one of the biggest studies on innovation in schools ever undertaken in Australia.
• The Performance Management and Development of Teachers in Australia Schools
  ‘The purpose of the research was to document existing performance management and development policies and practices to enable sharing of effective practice’.

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Political Parties : Education Policies

Federal & State/Territory Links

• Australian Democrats
  
• Australian Labor Party [School Reform]State Branches are listed below.

• Australian Capital Territory
• New South Wales
• Northern Territory
• South Australia
• Victoria
• Western Australia

• Australian Liberal Party
  Party Platform, PDF format, has policies. State Division links are found at the bottom of the home page. Search these for state-level policies.
• National Party of Australia
  Were combined with the Liberal Party to form government. Education as a value is listed here. State Branches are listed below.

• LNP Queensland
  The combined Liberal & National Party in this state. This page details policy issues.
• Victoria
  This provides their current policy.

• The Greens
  This page provides their Education policy.

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