The commission’s fourth interim report on how to boost Australia’s lagging productivity hones in on building a skilled and adaptable workforce.

The latest report flags that the task of delivering a high quality education to all students currently faces several challenges, namely:

  • Student ability in Australian classrooms varies significantly. Outcomes are stagnating and some students are being left behind.
  • Teachers spend much of their time on activities other than lesson delivery and are working long hours to finish all required tasks.
  • Too many teachers, especially in more remote schools, are having to teach out of their field, and access to teaching tools is uneven across the country.

The commission propose two key reforms to address these issues.

The first being a single national platform that hosts a bank of sequenced lesson planning materials that would offer teachers and schools “a foundation to adapt to their local context and student learning needs, saving planning and search time”.

The second is a national approach to edtech, to “enable the lessons learned by early adopting jurisdictions to be incorporated into future investments, spreading the benefits of advanced edtech to students in all states and territories and school sectors”.

“Addressing these national priorities is a coordination challenge. Australian, state and territory governments will need to work together to secure these benefits,” the report urges.

But the Australian Education Union (AEU) has argued the commission have come up with the “wrong solution” with its “off-the-shelf” lesson plan proposal.

AEU deputy president Meredith Peace said what teachers really wanted was a significant cut in admin duties so they could actually spend more time on lesson planning and working with colleagues to meet students’ individual needs.

The union say research conducted as part of the national inquiry into school education found pre-made lesson plans were the ‘last thing’ teachers say will help them to improve academic outcomes.

Rather, teachers’ top priorities are on additional classroom support, more teachers and intensive tutoring support to help students at risk of falling behind, the union contends.

“Governments need to listen to the profession and respect their experienced and informed views about what is needed to lift results,” Peace said.

“The needs of students have never been more complex and diverse and over one quarter in public schools have a disability. Teachers know that off-the-shelf lesson plans aren’t what they need to meet the individual needs of students.

“They need better support inside and outside the classroom and a dramatic cut in the excessive administration and compliance workloads that are dragging their focus away from their students.”

Last June, the AEU Victorian Branch reportedly faced backlash from its members and literacy experts over its refusal to support a state-wide shift to evidence-based literacy instruction.

EducationHQ heard at the time that many of the state’s teachers were either quitting the Branch or reconsidering their future with the union over its rejection of a bold structured literacy and explicit teaching reform led by Education Minister Ben Carroll. 

“Converting one subject into a year’s worth of sequenced, detailed curriculum materials would take an estimated 500 hours," the PC report notes.

The commission says that a shared bank of teaching tools and resources would result in a more productive system – one that would do a better job at helping students reach their academic potential.

One issue is the sheer range of abilities within the average classroom that requires teachers to differentiate their materials for those struggling, those at or around expectation for their grade level and those who sit well ahead, the report notes.

“High quality resources and tools – both traditional and more technologically sophisticated – can help teachers to meet the needs of students of all abilities, learning styles and backgrounds.

“But not all teachers have access to high quality tools and resources, or know where to find them,” it adds.

There also appears to be great variability across school sectors, the PC flags. During the consultation phase, the commission said it heard repeatedly that the tools teachers had at their disposal largely depended on their jurisdiction or sector.

“While some states and territories have developed lesson planning materials and made them available through centralised resource banks, others have not. Where they do exist, they can be limited to teachers working within that state or territory.”

Previous research from Grattan Institute found the typical full-time teacher spends six hours each week sourcing and creating curriculum materials, while some spend a great deal more.

“Converting one subject into a year’s worth of sequenced, detailed curriculum materials would take an estimated 500 hours,” the report states.

“Teachers also have less opportunity to focus on adopting the most effective teaching strategies.”

Under-resourced teachers and those new to the profession also often need additional support to develop or source materials for classes, while leaving lesson planning to chance is not an equitable approach at the system level, the report suggests.

“Teachers who are sourcing materials that fail to meet the standards set in the Australian Curriculum will place their students at a disadvantage, which can be compounded when materials are not adapted for local contexts, or do not provide additional guidance or scaffolding for both under and over performing students,” it reads.

Meanwhile, some 90 per cent of teachers, and especially those stretched thin or early in their career, have said they do not have enough time to effectively prepare for their lessons.

A national resource bank would also help to stem the attrition crisis in teaching by reducing workload and boosting wellbeing, the commission says.

It cites AITSL figures from 2023 that found when teachers who intended to leave early were asked why, 75 per cent cited ‘workload’, 69 per cent cited ‘work/life balance’ and 68 per cent 'stress/mental health/wellbeing’.

The PC says there is support for a national, open‑access curriculum resource hub.

“Some respondents stressed that using materials from a national hub should not be mandatory and that the provision of centrally available materials should not diminish teacher agency,” it reports. 

Others called for resources to be assured against agreed quality standards, as well as being adaptable to different school environments. 

“Teachers are under pressure to produce quality materials for students with a wide range of academic abilities while performing many other non-teaching tasks. We need to give our teachers time and support to do the thing they do best – teach,” Commissioner Catherine de Fontenay concludes. 

“Many students are leaving school without strong foundation skills in reading, writing and mathematics.

“These are the skills students will need to become more employable, improve their skills on the job, and successfully retrain when needed.”