The Australian Government is committed to an education system that pursues excellence for all Australian schools and where every child receives the highest quality education. This commitment has been backed through both a national agenda for school reform and unprecedented investment. Major reform priorities set by the government include raising the quality of teaching in our schools, ensuring all students are benefitting from schooling, especially in disadvantaged communities, improving literacy and numeracy outcomes, and improving the transparency and accountability of schools and school systems at all levels.
In partnership with the states and territories, the Australian Government has entered into National Partnerships in the key areas of addressing disadvantage, supporting teachers, and improving literacy and numeracy.
The Australian Government has committed funding of $540 million through the Smarter Schools – National Partnership Agreement on Literacy and Numeracy. The National Partnership supports states and territories to implement evidence based practices that will deliver sustained improvement in literacy and numeracy outcomes for all students, especially those who are most in need of support.
The Australian Government is committed to developing effective workforce planning and supporting structures to identify teaching performance and to reward quality teaching at the national level through the $550 million Smarter Schools – Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership (TQNP) agreement.
The National Partnership to assist Low Socio-economic Status School Communities provides $1.5 billion Australian Government funding over seven years (2008-09 to 2014-15) to support education reform activities in up to 1500 low socio-economic status schools across the country. This funding will be matched by state and territory co-investment over the life of the partnership.
The Australian Government is also working with States, Territories, non-government education providers and Indigenous Australians to develop a set of actions that assist to close the gaps between the educational outcomes of Indigenous Australians and other Australians. See Indigenous Education
For more information about these National Partnerships, including the outcomes being sought in each area, please visit the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG).
The National Key Reform Projects are supporting states and territories to implement the Smarter Schools National Partnership reforms. States and territories are working collaboratively to deliver projects in the following major reform areas:
- School performance improvement frameworks
- Innovative strategies for small and remote schools
- Parental engagement in schooling in low SES communities
- Extended service models in schools
- Literacy and numeracy diagnostic tools
- School leadership development strategies