Deakin University

AERO

Can we trust AERO’s independence now?

Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), , , ,

What do you get when governments pour millions of taxpayer dollars into a charity with the power to shape what happens in Australian classrooms? You get the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) – and with it, the risk that private and commercial interests can steer future directions in education policy and research. Defenders of AERO are quick to claim that it is trustworthy because it is a “publicly funded, independent body”. But in a complex education system where these words carry popular sway, it’s worth asking: independent from what, exactly?

The lowdown on AERO’s status and structure

AERO’s structure is different from other national education bodies that also receive public funding. For example, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is an independent statutory authority established by legislation. It takes direction from Australia’s education ministers. That’s quite different from AERO, which is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.

AERO’s members include all the ministers of education. Back in 2020, they agreed in principle to invest $50 million in AERO over four years, with the Australian Government to fund half, and the combined state and territory governments to fund the other half. Australia’s Education Ministers take advice from AERO. 

This is how AERO has achieved power and influence over education reform.

If AERO is publicly funded, why is it also registered as a charity?

There are several strategic, financial, and legal advantages to registering as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). Being officially registered can signal legitimacy and build public trust. Also, many government and philanthropic grants require ACNC registration and in some cases, Deductible Gift Recipients (DGR) status. 

The ACNC requires registered charities to report regularly to maintain their registration and eligibility for tax concessions. All registered charities must submit an Annual Information Statement within 6 months after the end of their reporting period. This statement must include information about responsible persons, the organisation’s activities during the year, beneficiaries served, financial information, and information that satisfies governance standards compliance. 

A large charity like AERO, with an annual revenue over $3 million must provide financial statements that comply with Australian Accounting Standards Simplified Disclosures, and an auditor’s report. These are published on the ACNC website.

Make no mistake, AERO has influential and cashed up backers

To truly understand AERO, it is important to understand its origins. In 2014, the UK Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) began funding ‘Evidence For Learning’ (owned by Social Ventures Australia or SVA, a venture philanthropic organisation). It was asserted that SVA’s ‘Evidence For Learning’ was a ‘pilot’ for AERO. Social Ventures Australia advocated and lobbied for AERO over a period of ten years. 

In 2016, then Treasurer Scott Morrison commissioned a formal inquiry into the ‘National Education Evidence Base’ via the Productivity Commission. The draft Productivity Commission report explicitly recommended modelling a new education evidence body on the UK Education Endowment Foundation, which would ‘leverage’ the work of Social Ventures Australia. The final Productivity Commission report was more tentative, although the Education Endowment Foundation features prominently and is upheld as a model institution.

In 2018, EEF launched a five year project titled ‘Building a Global Evidence Ecosystem in Teaching’. This was part of its ‘what works’ approach and the stated goal was to establish:

EEF-style organisations in partner countries to act as evidence brokers and encourage the adoption of evidence-based policy at a national level.

AERO was established shortly afterwards in 2020. The ‘expert board’ and directors that were appointed reflected these origins closely. For instance, the former CEO of EEF (Sir Kevan Collins) sat on AERO’s expert board for a long time, as did former SVA directors and donors. However, these connections with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) were never made explicit for the public.

Perhaps these connections are tenuous, but AERO’s approach to education ‘evidence’ inevitably mirrors the Education Endowment Foundation’s ideologies about ‘what works’ in education. As stated in AERO’s commissioned report, AERO is part of the “what works” movement.

The ‘what works’ movement promotes similar ideas, solutions and reform agendas. It is behind the push for the implementation of ‘cognitive science’ in the classroom and sees randomised controlled trials (RCTs) as best research practice. 

The ‘what works’ network does a good job of presenting itself as independent, while promoting contested but marketable ideas with flow-on benefits for private and commercial interests.

What does AERO’s status as a registered charity mean?

AERO is registered under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), with DGR status under Australian Tax Law. This means it is eligible to receive tax deductible donations, including from corporate philanthropy.

Registered charities are also allowed to engage in issue-based advocacy and influence public policy. AERO does this by leveraging its network of think-tanks, bloggers and podcasters, who amplify key messages. 

Some of the biggest brands in education research are registered charities

There are several research organisations that are registered as charities in Australia, but only some receive government funding. Some – like the Grattan Institute – acknowledge their supporters and indicate the amounts received on their websites. This sort of transparent disclosure builds public trust and accountability. It also makes it easy to evaluate whether certain funders or ideological leanings may be driving the sort of research they do and reforms they support. However, such disclosures are currently voluntary and some organisations – like The Centre for Independent Studies – choose not to identify donors.

We compiled the table below from publicly available financial statements lodged with the ACNC. This enables readers to compare how key organisations earned revenue in the financial year ended 30 June 2024 (the most recently published reporting period).

Revenue by organisation, FY 2023-2024

CharityTotal RevenueGovernmentGoods and ServicesDonations and BequestsInvestmentsOther
AERO$22,691,616.0094%1%0%5%0%
ACER$110,325,209.000%99.6%0%0.2%0.2%
The Centre for Independent Studies$5,144,419.000%14%84%2%0%
Grattan Institute$5,809,856.001%13%43%43%0%

AERO vs ACER: Compare the pair

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) seems to offer a close alternative to AERO.

On its website, ACER describes its mission as being “to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the lifespan”. ACER has a reputation for producing robust and nuanced analyses of Australian students’ performance on international assessments like the OECD PISA and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Many teachers will be familiar with the Teacher magazine and podcast series as media for sharing research insights and practical guidance with teachers. 

A key difference between AERO and ACER is the level of government investment and oversight. ACER reported $0 revenue from the government – almost all (99%) of its revenue was generated by providing goods or services to the education sector. 

Scrutiny is a public duty

While AERO operates under its own Constitution and is governed by a Board of Directors, its origin story and affiliations prompt questions whether it is fully independent.

In this context, scrutiny over what value for public money is being delivered is essential.


Carly Sawatzki, senior lecturer, and Emma Rowe, associate professor, are education researchers in the School of Education at Deakin University and in the Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI). Carly researches the teaching of critical economic and financial literacies at school. Emma won a DECRA 2021–2024. Her research is interested in policy and politics in education.

Hands holding cards with different languages on them

How these teachers made languages stick

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Innovative. Engaging. Authentic. These are not terms you usually hear from primary school teachers, students and parents about learning another language. In fact, usually language learning isn’t paid much attention. When it is, it is often within policy debates arguing that the curriculum is too cluttered and crowded. 

Yet, these terms characterise the feedback that classroom teachers have shared with researchers about a new approach to language learning and teaching called Teachers as Co-learners (TCL) in select Victorian Catholic primary schools.

In Victoria, all schools are required to provide a language program as Languages is one of the eight key learning areas of the F-10 Australian Curriculum. Nearly all (94.4%) of the language programs provided in Victorian government schools are taught as a separate subject. In primary schools, that often means one language class per week. 

Teachers as Co-learners

Now fifty primary schools in the Catholic education sector are rewriting the script by adopting the TCL approach. Developed by the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), TCL involves daily 15-minute language lessons, with all classroom teachers – supported by a language assistant who is fluent in the target language – as the facilitators of their school’s program. 

Languages currently offered in the TCL program include Italian, French, Indonesian and Auslan (Australian sign language used by the majority of the Australian Deaf community).This approach aims to address well-known challenges in language education provision. Australia often reports chronic language teacher shortages, fluctuating student uptake and retention and perceptions that rapidly advancing translation technology and AI will replace language teaching and learning altogether.

This approach is also reimagining what engaging and inclusive language and literacy education could look like in Australia’s multicultural and multilingual primary schools.

Our research

We conducted a pilot study last year into the experiences and perspectives of classroom teachers, language assistants, curriculum and school leaders with TCL. Focus group conversations were conducted with 30 participants across four Catholic primary schools in Melbourne and Geelong. Our research highlights that TCL contributes to innovation across a range of areas:   

  • Co-learning    
  • Sustained and meaningful language practice 
  • Connecting learning areas across the curriculum 
  • Levelling the playing field for all learners   

“We’re On It Together”: The Power of Co-learning  

Participants described co-learning of their school’s target language as: fun, learning together, engaging in group work, confidence building, admitting uncertainty, ‘mistakes are okay’. One participant, who was new to their school and therefore new to TCL, reflected on their experience with co-leading the learning of a language: 

Because I started this year, I said to the students: “I’m really nervous because I’ve never done this before”. So I came from a place of vulnerability and said: “I’m going to get lots of this wrong, can you please help me?”. And they have been nothing but supportive. As I learn along the way, I’ll ask questions and say something like: “I can remember that”, and I’ll tell them how I remember. So, we’re on it together. 

Making Language Stick: Sustained and Meaningful Practice  

Overall, participants agreed that TCL’s focus on teaching and learning functional language is effective in engaging students in language learning. Within TCL, students learn to make simple requests, ask for clarification and communicate a range of everyday topics in their target language. 

This emphasis on functional language is supported by a whole-school approach that provides daily opportunities for language use in and beyond the classroom: “It’s about building student confidence and teacher confidence so that Italian speaking, it’s not just in that 15 minutes – we hear it throughout the school at different times”.  

Most participants emphasised TCL’s potential in supporting students’ retention and fluency in an additional language: I’m actually really surprised at the amount of language they [the students] can understand, speak, and write, and spell.   

Linking Up Learning: Building Bridges Across the Curriculum 

Our research conversations showed that TCL provides opportunities for students to identify links between Italian study and other learning areas. Participants commented that students are making connections between English and Italian by identifying similarities and differences in grammar, phrasing, expression and idiom. Students are also recognising links between Italian and its historical and linguistic importance in Catholicism and Religious Education. 

Levelling The Playing Field: Language Learning for Every Student 

Several participants noted the collaborative and democratic basis of TCL pedagogy and curriculum. Learning a new language alongside peers and teachers empowered students who might be struggling in other areas by giving them a level playing field. 

There were a few students that loved the idea of starting from scratch with everyone. It didn’t matter whether you were strong at literacy or strong at maths – it sort of levelled the playing field again. Students that may struggle in particular areas were able to “come back to the pack”, and everyone started from one position. Students who might battle in some other subjects find Italian as being one of their areas of strength.  

Sustaining Effective TCL Implementation

While participants’ experiences with TCL were overall highly positive, they also highlighted several key considerations for the sustainability of the program. The main concern was the consistent scheduling and integration of TCL in the school day, as competing priorities in the classroom could affect the daily time-on-task for language learning: “There’s always stuff that we’re juggling – we’re doing some assessments and we need an hour timeslot, and sometimes it’s really challenging in our day to fit in what we need”.  

Participants cited whole-school collaboration as another key factor in sustaining TCL. Maintaining a collaborative culture over time can be challenging: “From the start, we did a lot together as a whole staff. Then that has died off a bit, and we’ve had a lot of change in staff. It’s how you catch everyone up, but we’ve kind of lost that ‘doing it together’ as a staff”. This highlights the need of ongoing staff engagement in TCL to keep the momentum going. 

Keeping it fresh

Program sustainability also requires continuous provision of ‘fresh’ program-specific curriculum and assessment resources: “If it [the curriculum loses a little bit of momentum because it becomes too recycled, then you can see it start to drift away”. Participants also emphasised the importance of adapting TCL resources to suit their school contexts and learners. 

Participants noted the importance of a well-coordinated transition between primary and secondary schools to sustain learner progress and engagement. Students who have learnt an additional language through TCL would leave Year 6 with basic communicative ability, compared to the majority of secondary Year 7 students who would be complete beginner learners of the language. Teachers and school leaders consistently emphasised the need for an extension of the TCL program into secondary schools, so students can continue building on the strong language foundation they developed in their primary years.

How it’s done

The potential of TCL for supporting confident language learners through consistent, functional and meaningful language use appears to be attracting national and international interest. Governments and educational systems overseas are looking to the MACS example to inform their primary language curriculum design and achieve national targets in increasing numbers of bilingual speakers (for example, Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill). This attests to Australia’s unique language diversity and continuing history of leading innovation in  multilingual language and literacy education.

For more information, visit the project page via Deakin University’s Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI). 

Thu Ha Bui is a graduate researcher in education at Deakin University. She researches educational technology and English as an Additional Language education. Jack K. Bennett is a graduate researcher in education at Deakin University and researches how education policy intersects with pedagogical practice and student experience. Michiko Weinmann is an associate professor in education at Deakin University (Languages/TESOL) and researches multilingual education, curriculum inquiry and internationalisation-at-home. Sarah Ohi is a senior lecturer in language and literacies at Deakin University. She researches the power and privilege of language and literacies. Andrew Skourdoumbis is an associate professor in education at Deakin University and researches teacher effectiveness research, critical policy analysis, and education reform/s.

Young student at white board in maths lesson

Is successful maths teaching more than method?

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What counts as “evidence-based” teaching in mathematics? Given calls by the Grattan Institute to end the lesson lottery and make a maths guarantee, this question matters. Explicit teaching is always part of a high-quality lesson sequence. But defining it as the ultimate pedagogy sidelines the very practices that engage students in mathematical thinking. Students need more than procedural recall and routines without reasoning if they’re going to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Why is explicit teaching making a comeback?

In signing the Albanese government’s Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, Australian states and territories have committed to provide all students with highly effective evidence-based teaching and equitable learning opportunities.

This is translated as adopting the Australian Education Research Organisation’s (AERO) advice on explicit instruction as “what works best” when it comes to teaching fundamentals like reading and mathematics.

In its explainer on how to optimise learning, AERO describes explicit instruction as follows:

‘Teachers directly explain to students how to complete a task, why the task is important, and how the task relates to and extends their previous knowledge. Demonstrations of how to perform tasks or solve problems are provided, often using worked examples.’

It is important to note that AERO’s valuing of explicit instruction stems from a narrow interpretation of the purpose of school education and what counts as research evidence. The studies AERO favours are typically randomised controlled trials not set in school classrooms. Seeking to transform teaching practice by generalising research findings made in tightly controlled environments is problematic. Why? Because these settings are often worlds apart from real classrooms. As the OECD notes, the reality for teachers is often unpredictable classrooms, where students have diverse and competing needs, resources are limited and time is constrained.

Policy is being used to deliver instructional fidelity

Yet, for the first time, education policy is being used to deliver instructional fidelity. The NSW Department of Education School Excellence Framework states: “Explicit teaching is the main practice used in the school.” In the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model Version 2.0, explicit teaching is the only pedagogy mentioned. 

In both these states, departments of education have produced detailed guidelines outlining what explicit teaching is and isn’t. They also provide lesson banks to help teachers align their teaching practice with these specifications. Across the Catholic system, instructional resources developed by AERO’s preferred partner, Ochre Education, are now widely used.

As a result, the classroom experience for many young Australians is now the use of universal slide decks that follow the “gradual release of responsibility” model. It borrows from literacy research and is sometimes referred to as the “I do, we do, you do” lesson structure. According to AERO, this involves the teacher modelling how to do mathematics and monitoring for 80% of students to achieve mastery before moving to any form of meaningful independent practice. This enactment tends to focus teachers and students on perfecting procedures and algorithms. This leaves less time for real world problem-solving experiences that more holistically develop mathematical thinking.

To adhere to these directives is to ignore decades of mathematics education research. 

So, what is the evidence for effective mathematics teaching and learning?

The truth is there is no magic bullet.

Studies have shown that when teachers combine student- and teacher-centred pedagogies, students do better. In fact, an OECD analysis identified three broad teaching strategies described as active learning, cognitive activation, and teacher-directed instruction. The OECD inked exposure to these teaching strategies with student performance on its PISA mathematical literacy assessment. It found strategies for active learning and cognitive activation were more effective than explicit or direct instruction. However, teacher-directed instruction was what students mostly experienced, despite this mode of instruction being least impactful for mathematics performance. 

Another OECD PISA analysis found teacher-directed strategies can support student success on easier tasks. But as problems become more difficult, students with more exposure to teacher-directed instruction no longer have a better chance of success. This is because too much teacher talk limits students’ opportunities to take ownership for thinking mathematically without close guidance. This insight is consistent with studies that show student-centred pedagogies are particularly effective in developing student initiative, responsibility and working mathematically.

Of course, it is important to teach explicitly and to make mathematical language and representations clear and visible. But flexibility is key. What works is contingent on the circumstances, including curriculum learning outcomes, learner profiles and the mathematical foci for the lesson.

Strong mathematics and numeracy leadership also matters 

The presence of an expert mathematics teacher who has input into school policy decisions and knows how to develop others’ teaching practice is a key feature of schools that perform highly in mathematics. 

For example, a substantive study commissioned by the Australian Chief Scientist analysed data from 52 case study schools. Each of these schools had an increase of 1 standard deviation or more in their NAPLAN results. Data collected from hundreds of school leaders, teachers and students across these settings revealed organisational factors that underpin success. 

These schools were committed to teaching mathematics for deep understanding. They valued student-centred learning, including student talk for understanding. They also took a consistent (not uniform) approach to local curriculum planning and had high levels of teacher autonomy. This means teachers were trusted to select teaching resources and pedagogies that met their students’ needs and interests.

We need to make maths real

A recent report explained that the telling and testing students typically experience in school mathematics is often at odds with developing positive feelings or a long-term interest in the subject. Parents and teachers want mathematics lessons to be  more engaging and real-world relevant so young people learn to use mathematics to think critically and make decisions. 

Studies of student motivation have shown teaching mathematics through interesting and challenging real world examples motivates students to choose the subject in senior secondary years and pursue mathematics-related careers.

That’s why curriculum writers have tried to position young people as active in the process of developing mathematical knowledge, skills, proficiencies and processes. 

It is through actively doing mathematics – not watching slide decks and memorizing procedures – that young people develop the kind of mathematical thinking they’ll need beyond the school gates.

Explicit teaching may be a solution to some problems in mathematics education, but it is not the only solution to all problems, all of the time.

Carly Sawatzki and Jill Brown are mathematics education researchers at Deakin University’s School of Education and in the Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI). Laura Tuohilampi is a mathematics education researcher at UNSW and the founder of Math Hunger and Maths for Humans. The authors’ work helps teachers connect the school curriculum with the real world, making mathematics education lifeworthy for today and tomorrow.

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of professional educators who provided insights and feedback that shaped this article.

Harvard amd Trump

What we should know about the threats to Harvard?

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Higher education is the latest frontline in Trump’s culture war—and fairness may be its first casualty. In a stunning 11 April 2025 letter, addressed to Harvard University, officials from multiple federal agencies demand nothing short of a cultural purge. Dismantle all DEI efforts, implement ‘merit-only’ admissions and hiring, and subject the university to ongoing surveillance-level audits to ensure compliance. 

Weaponising ‘Merit’ Perpetuates Injustice in Education

The government demands Harvard must “cease all preferences based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin”. It must also shutter all DEI-related infrastructure, audit every hiring and admissions decision, and certify in writing that only meritocratic standards have been applied.

Similar mandates have been sent to Columbia University, the University of North Carolina, and Stanford University. These letters follow a now-familiar pattern: enforce a singular ideological vision that sidelines equity and weaponizes merit.

Harvard firmly rejected the demand. This came as little surprise given the growing calls for well-resourced universities to resist Trump’s intimidation. In retaliation, the Trump administration escalated its punitive measures. It froze approximately $2.2 billion in federal funding and initiating steps to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. On May 22, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). This effectively barred the university from enrolling international students. .

The loss of funding, if extended across the sector, could deepen existing disparities in educational opportunities, particularly for low-income and minority students, thereby exacerbating barriers to access and success in higher education.

Now Harvard is suing the Trump administration.

The Myth of Meritocracy

To understand the threat these letters pose, we must first interrogate what ‘merit’ really means. In popular usage, merit implies a neutral, objective measure of individual talent and effort. In educational settings, it is commonly reduced to test scores and other standardized metrics. But as a growing body of scholarship has shown, these metrics are far from neutral.

In The Tyranny of Meritocracy, Lani Guinier argues that standardised tests are not measures of intelligence or potential. Instead, they are proxies for privilege—predicting parental income better than future performance. Likewise, in The Meritocracy Trap, Daniel Markovits details how elite meritocratic institutions reinforce class stratification by rewarding access rather than ability. 

In this light, insistence on ‘pure’ merit is deeply misleading. It erases history and context, treating unequal outcomes as evidence of unequal effort. It ignores how merit is built over time—through supportive learning environments, stable housing, nutrition, mentorship, and emotional security. The focus on merit dismisses early disadvantage and inhibits the cultivation of talent.

Merit is Nurtured, Not Discovered

The concept of meritocracy presumes that talent naturally rises to the top. But talent doesn’t flourish in a vacuum. It must be cultivated through consistent access to opportunity, support, and inclusion—conditions that are often absent in structurally disadvantaged communities. 

When merit is stripped of its social and historical context, it becomes a dangerous fiction. Rewarding achievement without acknowledging the unequal conditions under which it is attained serves only to entrench existing inequalities. A test score, for instance, is not an objective measure of potential; it is a snapshot shaped by access to resources, quality of preparation, levels of stress, and available social capital.

As Reardon has shown, income inequality is strongly correlated with educational achievement gaps, with the advantages of high-income families compounded over time through enriched learning environments and better-resourced schools. A student growing up in an overcrowded home, attending an underfunded school, and dealing with chronic insecurity must navigate immense challenges just to show up. 

Why Merit Needs a Reality Check

There are many reasons for society to be cautious about the ideology of meritocracy.

First, merit without context reinforces inequality. When policies treat merit as a pure, context-free measure of worthiness, they inadvertently reward privilege and punish adversity. Being reasonable about merit means acknowledging the uneven playing field and incorporating social context into how we recognise potential.

Second, merit is not a static quality that individuals possess—it is a product of opportunity, mentorship, support, and institutional access. As Nobel Prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argues, fairness in outcomes requires fairness in the development of capabilities. Recognizing this means shifting away from rigid metrics toward more holistic assessments that appreciate diverse forms of intelligence and contribution. A reasonable approach to merit understands it as nurtured, not inherent, and therefore calls for proactive measures to expand the conditions under which merit can flourish.

Third, an uncritical adherence to meritocracy can ossify privilege, reinforce structural disadvantage, and strip away the very empathy and solidarity necessary for democratic life. Sociologist Michael Young coined the term meritocracy to warn society that excessive faith in merit can breed new forms of elitism and exclusion.

What Should be Done

True merit is not discovered; it is developed. It is not individual; it is social. It is not neutral; it is shaped by history. To honour merit is to invest in justice, support inclusion, and cultivate excellence everywhere—not just in those already deemed deserving. Meritocracy needs to be contextualised.

 The backlash politics unfolding in the United States is already undoing decades of progress in civil rights and social justice. Australia cannot afford to be complacent. We must remain vigilant to ensure that similar regressive currents do not take hold in our institutions. 

In particular, Australian universities must recognise that true merit does not emerge in a vacuum. It must be actively cultivated through equity-driven supports and inclusive policies—not simply assumed through standardised tests or conventional metrics that often reflect entrenched privilege more than potential. 

With its renewed mandate to govern, Labor must now deliver on its promise to break down “the invisible brick wall” that “stops a lot of people from poor families, the outer suburbs, and the regions from getting to the front door“.

Tebeje Molla is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University. His research areas include student equity, teacher professional learning, and policy analysis. His work is informed by critical sociology and the capability approach to social justice and human development.

equity and educational outcomes in universities

Has the social licence of universities been lost?

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This is the fourth day in a series of posts on AARE education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about equity and educational outcomes – including in universities.

Higher education cannot be separated from global uncertainty and shifting geopolitics – Trump’s isolationism, China’s assertiveness, wars in Gaza and Ukraine, disruptions of Gen AI, climate change, and the spread of misinformation and the misogyny circulating through social media. Nation states are seeking to become more self-reliant in defence, supply chains, energy, AI and skills development. It could be expected higher education is central.  Academic freedom and universities being a critic and conscience are central to democracies.

Education added over $29 billion to the economy in 2022. International students in Australia contributed $25.5 billion and students studying online adding a further $3.5 billion. Education is, next to health and defence, the biggest investment by governments. But government investment in non-government schools is currently greater than in universities. Australia is characterised by increased socio-geographical educational inequality and segmented education funding favouring non government schools.  

Universities are forced to rely on international students

Australian universities are internationally viewed to be high quality and exceeding research outcomes. They are in the top four ranking of international student (others. being USA, UK, Canada). University sector’s sources of income are domestic students, industry (tied), research income (tied) with international students the only discretionary funds.  Universities have therefore been forced to rely on international students to fund domestic student growth and research. 

Bipartisan weaponisation of international students has occurred with policies incorrectly linking international students to migration and housing shortages. Restrictions, increased fees and slowing of visa approvals for international students and migration policies has impacted regional universities in particular with significant job losses eventuating while Gof 8 universities attract wealthy Chinese students .  

These factors have increased differentiation between research and teaching intensive universities. Furthermore, humanities and social science courses in regional universities which are cross subsidised by international students fees, are disappearing. Again this impacts on women who are concentrated in these fields.

The impact of Covid still felt

With Covid – we lost 20,000 academics and staff because the Coalition refused Jobseeker to universities. Recovery is being impacted by Labor’s EB awards seeking to reduce casualisation but with perverse effects. The  development of teaching-only positions has increased academic workloads. This will affect research output, with potential gendered effects in education.

Universities have multiple complex international research collaborations. Research is critical to innovation and educating a skilled workforce in all forms- technical, scientific and social benefits. 

R& D funding has reduced from 2.2% in 2014 to 1.69% in 2024. There is a critical need to join Horizons Europe which is major source of research funding in EU.

Whereas foreign Interference legislation focused on transparency particularly with China, Trump’s attack on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and China has led to loss of US funding in Australian- US research programs.  Australian universities need to maintain a strong DEI stance. 

The Accord final report (2024) commendably focused on increasing participation of  equity groups (rural. Regional and remote, Indigenous,) and improving support for regional universities. Unless international student policies change and public schools who teach over 80% of students in equity groups are fully funded immediately, increased equity participation and regional  aims will not be achieved. 

The Accord named governance issues: casualisation, high VC and management salaries, workload, lack of  academic in -put in governance decisionmaking, not implementing sexual harassment policies etc.  It is questionable whether Chancellors’ Council principles of good governance will make VCs more accountable! 

Disenchantment with university management

Academic workforce is extremely discontented with the system and disenchanted with university management—they feel undervalued as core workers. The university sector has been corporatised, managerialised, marketized, commercialised and now digitalised. Gen AI is impacting on teaching and research.  

Academics and students are concerned that the social license of the university and its core work of teaching, research and service for the public good have been lost. They seek a greater voice in decision making. 

Jill Blackmore AM PhD FASSA is Deakin Distinguished Professor in Education, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, former president of the Australian Association of University Professors and of AARE. She undertakes research from a feminist perspective of education policy and governance; school autonomy reform; gender equity reform; leadership and organisational change; international and intercultural education; gendered labour markets and employability, and teachers’ and academics’ work, health and wellbeing. Her focus is on sustainable, equitable, inclusive and safe educational organisations and workplaces.

n-word

This is why schools should ban the N-word now

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The N-word is hateful. No good comes from a bad word.  Schools are entrusted with the responsibility of nurturing safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments. This cannot be fully achieved if harmful language is allowed to persist unchecked. Schools should ban the use of this derogatory word.  

Many Australians take pride in living in a prosperous multicultural society, cherishing values of fairness and equality. I eagerly want to share this optimism, but the lived realities of many marginalised communities tell a more complex story. 

The Australian Human Rights Commission reported that people with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds continue to face racial prejudice and discrimination. According to the latest Scanlon Report on Social Cohesion in Australia, nearly two-thirds of respondents said racism is a big problem. 

My research, along with that of others, reveals  racial slurs directed at African-heritage students are widespread in Australian schools. The prevalence and normalisation of the N-word within school environments raises important questions about the responsibility of educational institutions to promote respectful communication and ensure safe learning spaces for all students.

The N-word is not just a word. It is a historical relic of dehumanisation. The N-word “should be odious to anyone.” As an African-heritage Australian educational researcher, I understand the damaging impact of negative racial representation on school engagement and outcomes. I have written about racial Othering and its negative impact. 

Here are four key reasons why schools should prohibit the use of the N-word by all students.

The historical weight of the term is too heavy to bear

Although the N-word originated as a neutral descriptor of colour, over time, it took on a derogatory connotation. Born out of the dehumanising practices of slavery and colonialism, the word was explicitly constructed to degrade and diminish the humanity of Black people—to inflict violence on Black psyches. 

Its continued use perpetuates the weight of generational trauma, serving as a painful reminder of historical injustices while reinforcing racial hierarchies. 

Schools, as spaces of learning and inclusion, must reject the presence of such harmful language. The banning of the N-word is, therefore, a moral imperative to uphold the dignity, safety, and wellbeing of all students.

The use of the N-word in schools normalises racism

Language can perpetuate stereotypes, prejudices, and injustices. The use of the N-word in educational settings, regardless of the speaker’s racial identity, risks perpetuating division and exclusion, undermining efforts to create a safe and welcoming space for all students. 

When used within educational spaces, the term creates a hostile environment. It undermines the sense of belonging and safety for racialised students, particularly those of African descent. Research by Tatum and others shows repeated exposure of Black students to racial slurs in classroom materials can normalise casual racism among their peers. 

Using the N-word as a racial slur is more than just offensive. It is a deliberate attempt to dehumanise and diminish the person targeted. The message is clear: your identity and individuality are irrelevant, and you are unworthy of respect. In a just society, such dehumanisation has no place.

What derogatory racial epithets in the curricula do to students

In Australia, texts like Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird feature in high school English language units. These texts include the N-word and other racial stereotypes. In an ongoing national research project, I documented how African-heritage students experienced these portrayals as deeply disrespectful and alienating. 

Drawing from his experience in a Year 9 English class, one secondary school student reflected on a troubling double standard that reinforces racial insensitivity in the classroom:

When it comes to sexual slurs, they bleep them out; they don’t say them. But when it comes to the N-word [in the text], they’re so quick to say it, which really confuses me. What sense does it make for a White person to say the N-word [out loud]? This type of stuff can really stop Black students from wanting to go on to university.

Alienation, anxiety and diminished self-worth

Exposure to racial slurs in the curricular materials has adverse psychological effects on racialised students. This  includes feelings of alienation, anxiety, and diminished self-worth. In my study, students reported that being called the N-word by both teachers and peers deeply undermined their sense of belonging and engagement at school. They stressed that, regardless of intent, the term created feelings of discomfort and exclusion.

Before introducing such texts, teachers should explicitly inform students about the presence of offensive language. They should identify the specific term and its context within the material. Teachers should also briefly explain the term’s historical background, its harmful impact, and the rationale for its inclusion in the text. They should emphasise that while studying the text, the term will not be spoken or read aloud by anyone in the classroom. 

Without proper contextualisation, those texts could reinforce stereotypes and further alienate students of African heritage. When students are exposed to racial slurs without proper contextualisation, some non-Black students are likely to feel emboldened to use the term, often without understanding its historical significance or the damage it causes to their racialised peers. 

Permitting Black students to use the N-word challenges consistency in enforcing anti-racism rules

The question of who has the right to use the N-word is divisive and contentious. Some argue that banning the use of the term denies Black students the agency to reclaim and reappropriate a word historically weaponised against them. 

Others, including scholars and public figures, reject its use entirely, regardless of who says it. I agree. As Randall Kennedy says: “There is no compelling justification for presuming that black usage of nigger is permissible while white usage is objectionable.” 

In fact, if a substance was once used as a poison to harm your ancestors, taking that same substance from your own hand does not make it any less harmful.

Allowing African-heritage students to use the N-word in schools creates inconsistencies in enforcing anti-racism policies. Teachers and administrators would be required to navigate the tension between respecting cultural practices and upholding a zero-tolerance stance against racial slurs. This creates ambiguity, as the term’s use by African-heritage students may inadvertently normalise it, inviting non-Black students to appropriate it or use it provocatively.

Research shows that a consistent and unambiguous approach to addressing racism is critical in creating safe and inclusive educational environments. A universal prohibition of the use of the N-word eliminates ambiguity and ensures consistency in enforcing anti-racism policies, providing a clear framework for teachers and students alike.

The broader challenge lies in striking a balance between upholding individual rights to self-expression and fostering communal standards of respect and inclusion. While racialised students may perceive their use of the N-word as an act of cultural or personal empowerment, its presence in school settings can inadvertently normalise racism.

Racism should be unequivocally unacceptable

In Australia, race is a legally protected attribute so the use of racial slurs in schools should be unequivocally unacceptable. Recent anti-racist initiatives, including the National Anti-Racism Framework and Victoria’s Anti-Racism Strategy, aim to foster a more inclusive and harmonious society. Schools are uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in this effort.

Prohibitive laws play a role in addressing the issue but are not a complete solution. Raising awareness is essential. Teachers must develop racial literacy to navigate these issues effectively, students should be guided to become respectful and empathetic citizens, and parents need to engage in timely and thoughtful discussions with their children about the significance and impact of racist language.

Tebeje Molla is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University. His research areas include student equity, teacher professional learning, and policy analysis. His work is informed by critical sociology and the capability approach to social justice and human development.

risk taking

Risk-taking is good for us. How education can help

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In a viral ABC interview, Gina Chick, winner of Alone Australia 2023, echoed what research is increasingly telling us. Risk-taking is good for us, but Australian society is risk averse.

“We live in a culture that pathologises discomfort…whereas, we only grow when we’re uncomfortable…and so being able to have tools to be in that discomfort…that’s when we start to metabolise the edges of that fear…and then our world gets bigger…and we can find what the discomfort is teaching us” 

Risk is often associated with negativity, such as impulsive behaviours that lead to harm and danger. Yet deliberate and considered engagement with risk-taking, discomfort and uncertainty can contribute toward a healthy and fulfilled life.

Despite an increasing discussion on the benefits of risk-taking in recent years, research from Deakin University indicates that Australians are among the most risk averse in the developed world, surpassing New Zealand, the UK and Canada. 

This research also identified a disconnect between what teachers and parents believe about risk-taking and what they allow to take place.

The restrictions placed on children and young people because of risk aversion may be contributing to an increase in childhood and teen anxiety. As Gina Chick suggests, risk aversion may be holding us back from growth and opportunity, both individually and as a society.

What can families and teachers do to help promote resilience and courage?

Understanding risk-taking

Risk is an inherent and unavoidable part of life. It is also complex and linked to a range of meanings. A simple way of understanding the complexity of risk is through the following phrases:

At risk – refers to the involuntary position of being ‘at risk of harm’. This phrase is used to describe when people are in vulnerable situations, usually outside of their control, that expose them to severe or long-lasting harm or danger.

Risk-taking – is a voluntary action where people choose to engage with elements or actions that involve the possibility of negative outcomes. 

Many people think about risk-taking as purely negative, associated with reckless and impulsive behaviours. But risk-taking can also be positive. Terms used to describe positive forms of risk-taking include healthy, beneficial and beautiful risk-taking – or a term specifically for education settings: pedagogical risk-taking.

How do we define pedagogical risk-taking?

Deliberately courageous practices with uncertain and possibly negative outcomes, intended to achieve benefit(s) for an individual, group, or the environment.

Pedagogical risk-taking can be physical, social, emotional and/or cognitive. Pedagogical risk-taking is undertaken in educational contexts, with consideration given to possible benefits and negative outcomes. Possible benefits usually outweigh negative consequences and the possibility of severe or long-lasting negative effects is avoided. Benefits may be achieved through success, or through learnings associated with mistakes or failure. 

Pedagogical risk-taking is something children, teachers and parents can do. It involves having the courage to step out of one’s comfort zone, embrace uncertainty, stand up for what one believes in, and learn through mistakes and failure – all of which contribute toward personal growth, learning, innovation, creativity, resilience and social justice.

By having a shared understanding of pedagogical risk-taking, families and teachers can promote a culture of risk-taking in education settings.

The current place of risk-taking in education settings

Although research supports the value of risk-taking in education for children, young people and teachers, there is currently limited inclusion of risk-taking in formal Australian education documents. The Early Years Learning Framework promotes risk-taking for young children, but the Victorian F-12 Curriculum is yet to include it. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers refer to practices that can require teachers to take risk, but are also yet to explicitly articulate the place of risk-taking in professional practice.

Despite this, early learning centres and schools are beginning to recognise the importance of explicitly articulating the value of risk-taking by including terms such as risk-taking, brave and courage in their values or philosophy. Teachers in these schools increasingly plan deliberate opportunities for children to engage with risk-taking, and engage in risk-taking themselves in their professional practice.

Promoting risk-taking 

Whether risk-taking is explicitly included in formal or centre documentation, teachers and families can promote risk-taking by talking about it and modelling it. By using the term risk-taking in a positive way and talking about risks taken, we explicitly acknowledge its place and value in educational settings. It is important to acknowledge and respect individual approaches to taking risks and encourage people to be both honest about how they feel and open to growth.

Children’s risk-taking can be promoted in a range of experiences, including physical outdoor play, interpersonal interactions and when learning something new. Children can take risks by testing their physical and academic capabilities, taking up opportunities to participate in unfamiliar activities and standing up for issues of injustice.

Teachers can promote risk-taking by modelling in their own professional practice. Teacher risk-taking can take a range of forms. It may be associated with new curriculum choices or innovations, interpersonal risk-taking by sharing ideas and beliefs or advocating for children and education in the wider community, or through the act of providing opportunities for children take risks, which can feel risky for teachers. Of course, these actions are not always risky, but they can put teachers outside of their comfort zone and require courage.  

When teachers, families and children collaborate to promote and engage in pedagogical risk-taking, this can result in pedagogies of courage.

Pedagogies of courage

A pedagogy of courage recognises that risk-taking is inseparable from education and life and that explicitly acknowledging, enabling and celebrating risk-taking in education settings is good for individuals and society.

Pedagogies of courage use a variety of strategies to promote and support courageous actions, such as a shared understanding and language around risk-taking, open and honest communication, documents and resources to encourage risk-taking, a variety of ways to assess and negotiate risk-taking, and non-judgmental support to reflect on and navigate the positive and negative outcomes of risk-taking.

Courageous communities work together to promote learning, opportunity and a fulfilling life for all. 

Mandy Cooke is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood Education at Deakin University. She has over 20 years’ experience as a practicing early childhood and primary teacher. In her academic work, Mandy focuses on positive transformation of educational practices for the benefit of individuals, communities, and a sustainable and socially just planet. Mandy does this by working with preservice teachers in their development as critically reflective practitioners and by engaging in research focused on initial teacher education and pedagogical practices. Her main research focus is risk-taking for both children and educators.

education PhD

Education PhD: What now? Twists and turns in a journey and where you might find yourself next

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Brandishing three university degrees and four decades of Australian and international work experience as a journalist/corporate writer, I sensed I finally had enough academic confidence pre-pandemic to tackle postgraduate research.   

Plus, my occasional stints of K-12 teaching since 2011 left me with a niggle I needed to explore. How on earth can you do out-of-field maths or science teaching and do it well; successfully even? 

Not knowing much about the difference between a Doctor of Education (DEd) and a PhD in education, I opted for the former. Over six months, I worked with my would-be supervisors to refine my proposal for an out-of-field maths teaching project. Hit submit, then waited four months. 

No luck: “Margaret’s substantive experience is as a journalist/editor. Her proposal is not aligned with her teaching experience. I appreciate that Margaret recognises this, identifying herself as an out-of-field maths teacher. However, the new Faculty of Education is clearly focussed [sic] on alignment between qualifications, experience, teaching and research.” 

Ouch. 

What Margaret did next

Next, I enrolled in Deakin University’s Graduate Certificate in Education Research, earning high distinctions for all four subjects. A solid record to get into a PhD at that university. After submitting my application, I checked in multiple times over four months, getting a confused message that they were assessing me for a scholarship – for which I hadn’t applied. Finally in December 2022, I was in. Part-time, online; a great fit with my freelance writing. 

But what was the point of me sharpening my academic writing claws?

It’s part therapy to process my teaching stints (and I’m returning to that fold next year, too). I’m keen not to put all my eggs in one basket, not to just be a writer in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Elegant academic writing entrances me. 

So, I’m all ears for post-PhD options. Which is why I found this symposium last month fascinating.

Yes, it is true some education PhD graduates may return to school classrooms – but a panel at Deakin University in October revealed other career options. 

Higher degree research symposium

This discussion was part of the Higher Degree Research Symposium on Digital Technology and Education, hosted by Deakin’s Research for Educational Impact (REDI) Centre.

Panel members were:

  • Professor of School Development and Governance Mathias Decuypere, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
  • Dr Luci Pangrazio, ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow, Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, and Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child
  • Recent PhD graduate, Dr Jessica Laraine Williams, transdisciplinary academic, physiotherapist and artist at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, and
  • Mike Stevenson, Head of Product at Educatordata.com, Mike has previously worked with institutions and edtechs like UTS, RMIT, Deakin, Murdoch, and SEEK.

Earning a PhD is a significant academic achievement, yet it opens a complex landscape of career options amid a changing academic job market. The three panel members pursuing academic careers shared their insights on this path. All panel members acknowledged that an academic career is just one option, with about half of Australia’s PhD graduates working outside academia. That aligns with global trends. 

Navigating the Winding Road to Success in Academia

Former high school English teacher Luci Pangrazio explained her choice to leave a tenured senior lectureship for two consecutive postdoctoral research roles, eventually securing a prestigious DECRA fellowship on her second attempt.

“I didn’t really have an academic career in mind, but after I obtained my PhD I went into an ongoing teaching-research position at Monash and successfully applied for a $25,000 grant to lead a project on a small time frame. I had my PhD published as a monograph, so this set me up to go for a research-only post doc,” she said.

Shortly after, Dr Pangrazio was offered a three-year postdoc at Deakin, working with the academic who had marked her masters’ thesis.

“It was a really difficult decision [to leave a permanent role], but I decided to take the risk,” said Dr Pangrazio. 

This led to an Alfred Deakin postdoctoral position, something of a consolation prize after her initial DECRA Fellowship application was unsuccessful. She secured a DECRA on her second try.

“My PhD supervisor said if you believe the work you are doing is worthwhile, you just have to keep trying and not be put off by bad reviews or rejections” said Dr Pangrazio.

Thinking beyond disciplinary boundaries

Dr Jessica Williams from Swinburne spoke about the need for PhD graduates to harness personal values and develop multiliteracy across disciplines.

“Think at the core what motivates and drives you.

“My journey through health sciences, humanities, social sciences, and education spanned a decade while I practised as a physiotherapist in hospitals, aged care, and management. But I’m no longer doing clinical work, as you can’t do everything.”

Dr Williams describes her PhD thesis as an exploration of boundaries: “It operated in the synergies, divergences and tensions of disciplines, which means you sit in the tension, the frissons. We can work productively in collaboration.

You can build a bridge

“It taught me the power of multiliteracies across disciplines; the need to use the right lexicon to bridge potential gaps or hesitations with employers in industry or academia. If you speak their language, you can build a bridge,” said Dr Williams.

PhD graduates can do this by “creating a narrative around their study skills, including experiences outside their PhD, and showing how it translates to broader disciplines,” she said. Start by exploring journals beyond those typically read by your education peers and “go beyond the silo”.

“Act with integrity. Identify work settings and cultures that align with your values. It’s a dynamic process.”

For Williams, a “throwaway post” on LinkedIn caught the attention of her discipline head at Swinburne University, who encouraged her to apply for a lecturing position.

“Make sure you’re visible online; share what you’re doing on a platform like LinkedIn. I had to weigh up how beneficial it would be, so I curate how much time I spend there.”

Pangrazio agreed, noting that she’s active on social media, especially Twitter/X, which has helped her connect globally and build a profile for sharing her published research.

“Be open to new experiences and opportunities. Sometimes a brief conversation at a conference has led to an email six months later inviting me to co-author a paper.”

Exploring geographical borders

Switzerland-based Professor Mathias Decuypere transitioned from the “nice, fun, safe haven” of his PhD years into a challenging postdoctoral life.

“My postdoc experience was really not the nicest in the world. I had two years of teaching, admin, and research, but there’s only so much you can do because postdocs are rare. There’s hardly any funding available, as most of it goes to doctoral students.”

Professor Decuypere’s strategy was to build his profile and “make his research, topics, and methods visible to the world.” At the same time, he advises to “not stick to an academic career whatever it takes – there are so many other options out there”.

“Be ready to answer immediately—to industry, policymakers, schools, or academia—what your research aims to accomplish.”

This requires a conscious uncoupling—essentially, stepping out from under the wings of PhD supervisors. Figuratively, he advised attendees to “kill your supervisors.”

“You must commit to a certain kind of treason towards your supervisors as you reach a stage where you no longer necessarily adopt their views.”

Diversifying opportunities

Panel member Mike Stevenson encouraged PhD students to not have all their eggs in one basket, be that academia or industry. Instead, they should consider making career ‘investments’ in both.

“You may want to be a dedicated researcher, but you could find yourself in a variety of roles. Think about what you can do this week with a spare five minutes to advance another path. Keep learning, improving, and collaborating with others,” he said.

Stevenson encouraged PhD students to think ahead, “You don’t want to invest in these things when you need them, so start now. When the time comes to try a different path, you have your parachute ready.”

EducatorData.com provides data analytics for the education sector, for educators, administrators, and policymakers.  EducatorData.com offers accessible analysis, data visualisation, reporting, and benchmarking, enabling education sector professionals to analyse trends and make informed decisions for their community. 

Stevenson highlighted the slow growth in the Australian academic job market where combined teaching and research roles are flat from 2019 to 2023, contrasting it with substantial growth in teaching only roles.

What else can you do?

However, he noted that while combined teaching and research roles averaged an FTE of ~0.9, for teaching only roles offered an average FTE of ~0.75, saying: “You might secure academic teaching roles that are only about three-quarters of a full-time position, so consider what else you can do.”

For instance, the Educatordata.com team includes both PhDs and non-PhDs, but does not require a PhD for any role. The focus is on the person and how their ability, perspective and experience can contribute. 

“Consider which of your academic skills are transferable. An academic path might not be the best choice for your bank balance, so you could use your skills elsewhere to earn more, return to teaching in schools, or stay connected to academia.”

Stevenson proposed PhD candidates and graduates had a wealth of skills and experiences they could draw on from their studies that could evidence their ability to have a positive impact in business, government, community, and not-for-profit organisations. But it required thinking differently.

“Working in industry requires adopting a different mindset, with colleagues who aren’t part of your supportive PhD community and haven’t shared your experiences.”

Stevenson said success in moving across industry and academia throughout your career comes down to being able to adapt to different cultural environments and not being defined by your credentials but instead by how you can help.

“Reflect on your priorities and where you might best fit,” he said.

Margaret Jakovac is a part-time PhD student at Deakin University, Victoria, using netnography to explore self-perceptions of success of out-of-field teachers of mathematics and/or science. By day, she writes under the surname Paton.

Science and writing: Why AERO’s narrow views are a big mistake

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Will narrow instructional models promoted by AERO crowd out quality teaching and learning?

A recent ‘practice guide’ from the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), on ‘Writing in Science’ raises significant questions about the peak body’s narrow views on teaching and learning. Is AERO leading us in the wrong direction for supporting teachers to provide a rich and meaningful experience for Australian students?

The guide  explains the nature of simple, compound and complex sentences in science. It  provides student writing with feedback  teachers could provide to improve the writing. There are suggestions for teachers to generate and unpack exemplar sentences and lists of nouns and adjectives, provided by practice exercises. 

Yet a close reading shows these analyses fall well short of best practice in analysing science writing. Further, this advice is missing any comprehensive linguistic account of grammar as resource for meaning in text construction;any critical perspective on the function different kinds of texts to make sense of science, and; any attention to the commitment of teachers of science to developing science ideas. 

We are world leaders

Yet, Australian researchers in literacy are world leaders in thinking about the functions of text in generating meaning across different genres and writing to learn in science. 

AERO has ignored such research. It  sacrifices what we know about engaging and meaningful teaching and learning practice on the altar of its ideological commitment to impoverished interpretations of explicit teaching. 

While the practice guide is  useful for alerting teachers to the importance of explicit attention to writing in science, it could do better by drawing on our rich research base around meaningful pedagogies –  (which include explicit teaching elements) that engage students and enrich science teachers’ practice.  

This story of ignoring a wealth of sophisticated Australian and international research to enforce a simplistic instructional model is repeated across multiple curriculum areas, including science and  mathematics. AERO’s ‘evidence based’ model of a ‘science of learning’ is based exclusively on studies involving one research methodology. It uses experimental and control conditions that inevitably restrict the range of teaching and learning strategies compared to those found in real classrooms. 

The research findings of the community of Australian and International mathematics and science education researchers who have worked with students and teachers over many decades to establish fresh theoretical perspectives and rich teaching and learning approaches have been effectively silenced. 

What underpins this narrowing?

What underpins this narrowing of conceptions of teaching and learning that seems to have taken the Australian education system by storm? AERO bases its instructional model almost entirely on the theoretical framing of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), particularly the research of John Sweller who over four decades has established an impressive body of work outlining the repercussions of limitations in working memory capacity. 

Sweller argues that when students struggle to solve complex problems with minimal guidance, they can fail to develop the schema that characterise expert practice. His conclusion is that teachers need to provide ‘worked examples’ that students can follow and practice to achieve mastery, an approach aligned with the ‘I do’, ‘we do’, ‘you do’ advocacy of AERO and the basis of the mandated pedagogy models of both New South Wales and Victoria. 

The argument that students can lose themselves in complexity if not appropriately guided is well taken. But this leap from a working memory problem to the explicit ’worked example’ teaching model fails to acknowledge the numerous ways, described in the research literatures of multiple disciplines, that teachers can support students to navigate complexity. In mathematics and science this includes the strategic setting up of problems, guided questioning and prompting, preparatory guidance, communal sharing of ideas, joint teacher-student text construction, or explicit summing up of schema emerging from students’ solutions. 

What really works

The US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics identifies seven, not one, effective mathematics teaching practices some but not all of which involve direct instruction.  An OECD analysis of PISA-related data identified three dominant mathematics teaching strategies of which direct instruction was the most prevalent and least related to mathematics performance, with active learning and in particular cognitive engagement strategies being more effective. 

Sweller himself (1998) warned against overuse of the worked example as a pedagogy, citing student engagement as an important factor. Given these complexities, AERO’s silencing of the international community of mathematics and science educators seems stunningly misplaced. 

This global mathematics and science education research represents a rich range of learning theories, pedagogies, conceptual and affective outcomes, and purposes. The evidence in this literature overwhelmingly rejects the inquiry/direct instruction binary that underpins the AERO model. Further, the real challenge with learning concepts like force, image formation, probability or fractional operations has less to do with managing memory than with arranging the world to be seen in new ways. 

To be fair, the CLT literature has useful things to say about judging the complexity of problems, and the strong focus on teacher guidance is well taken, especially when the procedures and concepts to be learned are counter-intuitive. However, CLT research has mainly concerned problems that are algorithmic in nature, for which an explicit approach can more efficiently lead to the simple procedural knowledge outcomes involved. 

The short term advantage disappears

Even here, studies have shown that over the long term, the short-term advantage of direct instruction disappears. The real issues involved in supporting learning of complex ideas and practices are deciding when to provide explicit support, and of what type. This is where the teacher’s judgment is required, and it will depend on the nature of the knowledge, and the preparedness of students. To reduce these complex strategies to a single approach is the real offence of the AERO agenda, and of the policy prescriptions in Victoria and NSW. 

It amounts to the de-professionalisation of teachers when such decisions are short-circuited. 

Another aspect of this debate is the claim that a reform of Australian teaching and learning is needed because of the poor performance of students on NAPLAN and on international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS. While it is certainly true that we could do much better in education across all subjects, particularly with respect to the inequities in performance based on socio-economic factors and Indigeneity, our relative performance on international rankings is more complex than claimed. 

Flies in the face of evidence

To claim this slippage results from overuse of inquiry and problem-solving approaches in science and mathematics flies in the face of evidence. In both subjects, teacher-centred approaches currently dominate. An OECD report providing advice for mathematics teachers based on the 2012 PISA mathematics assessment revealed Australian students ranked ninth globally on self-reporting memorisation strategies, and third-last on elaboration strategies (that is, making links between tasks and finding different ways to solve a problem). The latter strategies indicate the capability to solve the more difficult problems. 

While it may be true some versions of inquiry in school science and mathematics may lack necessary support structures, this corrective of a blanket imposition of explicit teaching is shown by the wider evidence to represent a misguided overreaction. 

How has it happened, that one branch of education research misleadingly characterised as ‘the’ science of learning, together with a narrow and hotly contested view of what constitutes ‘evidence’ in education, has become the one guiding star for our national education research organisation to the exclusion of Australian and international disciplinary education research communities? 

Schools are being framed as businesses

It has been argued AERO ‘encapsulates politics at its heart’ through its embedded links to corporate philanthropy and business relations and a brief to attract funding into education. Indeed, schools are increasingly being bombarded with commercial products. Schools are being framed as businesses. 

The teaching profession over the last decade has suffered concerted attacks from the media and from senior government figures. Are we seeing moves here to systematically de-professionalise teachers and restrict their practice through ‘evidence based’ resources focused on ‘efficient’ learning? Is this what we really want as our key purpose in education? In reality, experienced teachers will not feel restricted by these narrow versions of explicit teaching pedagogies and will engage their students in varied ways. How can they not? 

If the resources now being developed and promoted under the AERO rubric, as with ‘Writing in Science’, follow this barren prescription, we run the danger of a growing erosion of teacher agency and impoverishment of student learning.

We need a richer view of pedagogy

What we need, going forward, is a richer view of pedagogy based on the wider research literature, rather than the narrow base that privileges procedural practices. We need to engage with a more complex and informed discussion of the core purposes of education that is not proscribed by a narrow insistence on NAPLAN and international assessments. We need to value our teaching profession and recognise the complex, relational nature of teaching and learning. Our focus should be on strengthening teachers’ contextual decision making, and not on constraining them in ways that will reduce their professionalism, and ultimately their standing.  

  

Russell Tytler is Deakin Distinguished Professor and Chair of Science Education at Deakin University. He researches student reasoning and learning through the multimodal languages of science, socio scientific issues and reasoning, school-community partnerships, and STEM curriculum policy and practice. Professor Tytler is widely published and has led a range of research projects, including current STEM projects investigating a guided inquiry pedagogy for interdisciplinary mathematics and science. He is a member of the Science Expert Group for PISA 2015 and 2025.

Student engagement data: what does it actually mean?

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With the many distractions facing students today – laptops, smartphones and social media, just to name a few – it is not surprising that teachers want to keep track of what their students are doing in and outside of class. EdTech companies promise teachers to track their students’ engagement automatically and in real time. They often offer visually appealing dashboard with easy interpretable graphs. But what do these tools actually measure? And what can we read from those dashboards? 

Engagement data, as I call them in a recently published article, can be found in Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as Moodle and Canvas. They can also be found in learning platforms commonly used in primary and secondary education, such as Education Perfect and MathSpace. Even online library Epic! offers engagement data. Engagement data should be seen as any sort of metrics that claim to say something about students’ on-task behaviour, their interaction with a platform or any predictive analysis based on these interactions. Engagement data differs from performance data, which is all about results, however, sometimes engagement data is correlated with performance data to ‘assess’ risk.

There are, roughly, five different types of engagement data. They are time-on-task data, task completion data, participation data, technical data and biometric data.

Time on task

Time-on-task data is based on the time students have spent on the platform. It is a common element in most LMS. Whether or not this is a good indicator of students’ engagement is questionable. Having a browser window or application open without being involved in learning activities, would not be seen by many teachers as a sign of deep engagement. But on the platforms’ dashboards this is presented as such. 

Engagement data on Education Perfect (source: help.educationperfect.com)

What got done

Task completion data seems to be a more straightforward metric. It actually gives teachers an indication of how many tasks their students have completed. However, this depends very much on how task completion is framed. Epic!, for instance, gives an overview of how many books students have ‘read’. However, students could have just clicked through the pages without having actually read something. Another problem with task completion data is the sheer number of tasks a student has completed comes to stand for a student’s level of engagement. This is especially the case on platforms where the number of tasks is potentially unlimited, such as in Education Perfect, where the system automatically generates new tasks based on students’ performances. Following this logic, the most engaged student is the student who has completed the most tasks. 

A screenshot of student engagement data on the library platform Epic

How reading engagement is measured on Epic (source: getepic.com)

Both contribution data and technical data are more common in the world of social media and online forums than in educational contexts. The first measures the number of posts by an individual student. Students discussing the learning content, then, is seen as an additional indicator of their level of engagement, rather than merely completing learning activities. The LMS Brightspace is a particularly interesting case, as it puts learning data in a sociogram, linking the most popular contributors with each other. It is an idea of ‘social learning’ that has more in common with the way in which we are chasing likes on Instagram and TikTok.

Fig. 4

Contribution data on Brightspace/D2L (source: community.d2l.com) 

Are students users?

Technical data are rather peculiar metrics. They merely describe technical interactions with the platform, such as the number of times specific content has been viewed. These data seem to have very little to do with what is generally understood as engagement by educators and scholars. However, in the world of social media these data are very important. They determine the extent to which content can be monetised. This is called user engagement. But are students users? Increasingly so. More education is delivered through commercial platforms profiting from increased use of licences sold to school or individual students.  

Biometric data is not common on the platforms that are currently used in Australian classrooms. But several experimental studies have looked at tracking students’ engagement by measuring brainwaves or by tracking their eye-movement. Influential organisations such as the OECD even promote these techniques to keep students engaged in the digital world. Apparently, it becomes increasingly normalised to monitor students’ bodies. I have been a teacher myself. I do understand teaching involves some surveillance and control. But as a colleagues of mine once said, can we ask from students to be engaged all the time?   And do we always need to know when they are not? 

The biggest problem

Perhaps the biggest problem with all these types of engagement data is that it frames engagement as something that is per definition measurable. Indeed, anything that cannot be measured cannot be put on a dashboard or be used by algorithms. This ‘technological’ idea of engagement excludes other elements of engagement that are put forward by scholars, such as the emotional and more cognitive dimensions. Engagement data do not show if a student enjoys school, for instance. They also do not show if a student is motivated to do another task or if they are resilient enough to deal with setbacks.  

Educational platforms, then, present a very narrow idea of what engagement is about. The question is: does this affect teachers?  Does it change their perception of what engagement is? So far, little research has been conducted on this topic. With this article I hope to create more awareness on the issue. Let us all reflect what kind of engagement we want to see in our students. Let’s critically reflect on the metrics of engagement put forward by digital learning platforms. 

Chris Zomer is a research fellow for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. His research interests include the datafication of learning, gamified learning platforms and the use of technology in education more broadly. For his doctoral thesis, he investigated how gamified learning applications reshape ideas, understandings and enactments of student engagement in a private girl school with an ‘academic’ student population.