The move would see the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), and Education Services Australia (ESA) merged into a new Teaching and Learning Commission, but state and territory leaders will need to back the plan for it to go ahead.

The proposal has been broadly welcomed by the sector, with the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) supporting a closer look at ”structures to improve coordination across the national teaching and learning architecture”.

ACU’s Dr Paul Kidson, a school leadership expert and former school principal, said the announcement will prove one of the biggest shake-ups to Australian education in well over 20 years.

“All of [these agencies] have got important roles to fulfill within the national architecture, but I think, arguably, if you spoke particularly to school leaders, you would find replication, duplication, in-built redundancy across all of the four of them,” he told EducationHQ. 

“... And so an opportunity to be able to sit down and go, ‘actually, what are we doing that works really well? What are we doing that doesn’t particularly work well?’ It’s a fundamental thing that school leaders and systems do day-in and day-out.

“Any opportunity to do that at a national level is a really, really helpful development,” Kidson added. 

According to the expert, the merger may well help to detangle what is an incredibly complex system of school governance and oversight. 

“In the history of this country, one of the great metaphors that we have is about rail gauges. And in old colonial days, when you caught the train from Sydney to Albury, you physically had to get out [at] Wadonga and get into another one to go all the way to Melbourne.

“That’s the kind of addiction that we have had, both constitutionally and culturally, to saying that each jurisdiction believes that what it does is the best thing.”

Kidson noted that since 1989, we’ve seen no less than four national declarations about our educational goals. And our schooling architecture has been an impediment to us meeting some of these, he argues. 

“If something can be improved from [the merger], I cannot but otherwise be supportive of that as an initiative.”

The overly intricate design of our school system does need to be interrogated, the expert said.

“...we don’t have one system, we actually have 25, because each state and territory, which we have eight, has three sectors, government, Catholic, independent, and then we’ve got a Commonwealth.

“And so out of a population a little shy of 30 million people, we’ve got 25 education systems, all of whom have got something to say about something to do with education.

“We have a population less than the state of California, and yet we’ve got 25 different perspectives about how that ought to be run.

While some might argue this brings a richness to the system, others would say the scene is ”intractably paralysing,” Kidson said.

The NCEC indicated the new Teaching and Learning Commission could lift the whole school system. 

“Amidst a complex educational eco-system of federal educational bodies, state and territory jurisdictional authorities and government and non-government providers, a more coherent national approach to integrating curriculum, assessment, evidence and innovation, has the potential to benefit the entire education system,” it stated today.

A controversial policy paper released this year lamented our chronically fragmented and underperforming education system, with former teachers Dr Deidre Clary, Dr Kevin Donnelly and Dr Fiona Mueller calling for a ‘serious review about what has gone wrong’ in Australian schooling.

“Without bold reform that includes greater national consistency in teaching, learning and assessment, Australia faces continued academic decline, growing inequality, and diminished economic and civic resilience,” they contended.

“The time for cosmetic change is over – systemic change is urgently needed.”

The authors called specifically for the establishment of a federal education commission, which would have oversight over initial teacher education and hold “all necessary powers to evaluate education policies against national objectives, ensure transparency of the policymaking process, and involve all stakeholders – including parents, schools, and employers.”

Gerard Holland, CEO at Page Research Centre, echoed this call, noting in the report:

“For decades, and for generations of Australians, the failure to resolve disagreements about school funding, curriculum design and content, teaching methodologies, assessment practices and myriad other issues has meant lost learning and lost opportunities.

“There are obvious implications for national productivity and social cohesion.”

The NCEC suggest Clare’s proposed shake-up would strengthen the focus on evidence-based teaching and boost the availability of high-quality classroom resources, including scrutiny over AI and edtech standards and quality professional development.

Clare’s commitment to “maintain and protect the critical work” of existing national bodies, while improving coordination and maximising their impact, was also encouraging, the NCEC said.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) have also welcomed the plan for a Teaching and Learning Commission, seeing the move as an “opportunity for a national discussion about how to strengthen the national education architecture for the teaching profession”.

AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe, however, said the move must be considered in “genuine consultation” with the teaching profession, represented by their unions.

“The reality for teachers on the ground is that they are facing a recruitment and retention crisis, escalating workloads and increased complexity of student needs,” Haythorpe said.  

“The question we have is whether the national education architecture is fit for todays’ teaching and learning needs.”

According to the union leader, a significant piece that is missing from the current architecture is a teaching workforce arm. 

“All education ministers across the country should be asking: how does the current architecture fit the actual needs of teachers, what is the teaching profession’s connection to these four bodies, and how do they support teachers to provide high quality teaching and learning for all students including those with high-level complex needs in the classroom?” she continued.

Professor Murray Print from The University of Sydney said that while it ‘makes sense’ to combine AERO with AITSL and Education Services to avoid overlap, ACARA should not be included in the merger. 

“It is essential to maintain ACARA as independent with its curriculum development and not subject to a mega government commission,” Print argued.

“ACARA has performed well recently under Stephen Gniel and its National Assessment Program is aligned with the Australian Curriculum.

“NAPLAN should also be kept separate from a national commission more concerned with school practice and teaching methods.” 

The expert said what’s really needed is an agreement from states and territories that they will “actively address falling completions, falling test scores and a widening gap between affluent and non-affluent students”.