Catholic Secondary Principals Australia Conference - Video Message

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land you’re meeting on today and I pay my respects to elders past and present.

Thank you for what you do.

Being a teacher is the most important job in the world.

Paul Keating used to say a good education was like having the “keys to the kingdom”.

A master key that unlocks every door. Every opportunity in life.

The truth is it’s you, our principals and the teachers who are the key makers who help young people open that door.

There is a lot happening in education at the moment.

Three good signs.

Attendance rates are now starting to go back up for the first time in a long time.

They’ve been sliding over the last decade from around 93 per cent to 86.5 per cent.

Now we’re starting to see that go back up. It’s now up to around 89 per cent.

It’s early days but it’s a good sign.

The number of kids finishing high school is also doing the same thing.

We saw it sliding over the last decade.

Now we’re seeing that go back up.

It’s up for boys and girls, it’s up in public school and in independent schools, and it’s up in Catholic schools.

The number of students studying teaching degrees is up as well.

Between 2017 and 2023 it dropped by 22 percent. 

In the last few years, it has bounced back. Up 20 percent.

These are all good signs, but the truth is there’s a lot more to do.

There’s a lot happening in teacher training as well.

From this year, every university is rolling out what we call core content in their teaching degrees.

This is a decision Education Ministers made a few years ago.

It means every student studying teaching will be taught more about how the brain works, how to teach children to read and write and count, and how to manage disruptive classrooms.

The other thing that's changed in teacher training is Paid Prac.

This is the first time the Commonwealth Government has done this.

It provides financial support for teaching students and helps pay the bills while you're doing your practical training.

There's also a lot of work happening now on the curriculum.

Late last year, Education Ministers agreed to rolling reform of the national curriculum.

Starting with maths. Starting with the first three years of maths.

Maths is sequential.

If you don’t understand the basics and the fundamentals, then you get lost and you can’t catch up.

A number of principals and teachers have told us they think the current maths curriculum is too complex.

Others have told us teachers need more support to teach maths, with more advice on what to teach in what order.

That work is being done by ACARA right now.

That work will be presented to Education Ministers later this year.

We're also doing important work on antisemitism and social cohesion.

There is no place for antisemitism in our schools, or our universities or anywhere else in our society.

We have all seen the sort of evil and wickedness it can lead to.

It’s our collective responsibility to do everything we can to weed it out and stop it from growing back.

What we do in education is an important part of that.

And that’s what the new Social Cohesion Hub for schools we have just launched is about.

It brings together existing resources to help combat antisemitism, racism and discrimination in all its noxious forms. And we’ll keep adding to it over time.

It’s all part of the work of the Antisemitism Education Taskforce being led by David Gonski.

Education is the most powerful cause for good we have in this country.

We have a good education system in Australia, but it can be a whole lot better and a whole lot fairer.

So, I want to thank you for your work to help us do this.

I hope you have a great conference.