Thank you for the opportunity to be with you here today.

Thank you, Joelle, for the wonderful welcome.

And thank you Sarah, for your work as the conference director and for your reflections on classical education.

When I entered the Parliament 10 years ago, the Sydney Morning Herald journalist Jacqueline Maley wrote a profile about me. This is what she said:

Julian Leeser is a federalism freak, young fogey, Gilbert & Sullivan tragic and policy nerd who dates his ambition to enter Parliament to about his 10th birthday, for which he asked his parents for a copy of the Australian constitution.

I am sad to say that all of these things are true.

Though I’m sure there is a Classics scholar in the room who will dispute it, I think the Latin term for me is Nerdus Maximus.

I did ask for a copy of the Constitution for my 10th birthday and I regard Australian democracy as one of the great liberal achievements of our country.

And I am a policy nerd – and for educational policy in particular.

I spent a great deal of my life in and around educational institutions.

Before entering Parliament I worked at Australian Catholic University, under Professor Greg Craven, I ran the Menzies Research Centre, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

I was commissioned by the late Paul Ramsay to produce a report to give life to his vision for the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and I served on its board from foundation until I became shadow minister for education.

I also sat on the board of Teach for Australia and have seen some of the extraordinary things that they do around the country.

And those of you who read or heard about my address to the Garma festival earlier this year, wearing my other hat as Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, would know that I specifically listed education as one of the priority areas which I think has the potential to have life-changing impacts down the generations for Indigenous people – alongside wealth creation and suicide prevention.  

Because, as I have said many times, education is life changing.

It is nation building. In the schools of today we lay foundations for the Australia of tomorrow.

What we teach and the way we teach matters. Those who know me know how excited I am to be involved in education policy.

I have joked before that being the Shadow Minister for Education is the second best job in Parliament.

And that is precisely because it is fundamental to all Australians.

The state of play today

Sarah invited me today to speak on my vision for Australian education and its capacity to impact the formation of an Australian identity and effect greater social cohesion, and in particular to address issues like the Australian Curriculum for schools, liberal arts education, regulatory pressures and what we should strive for in our education system.

It was an extraordinarily generous invitation – but she only gave me half an hour to speak so I might not have the opportunity to cover all of it!

So I wanted to focus my remarks on the Australian education system, where it stands today, and where it needs to change to give our children the best chance for success in life.

Unfortunately the picture is not rosy.

Our academic performance is worse than ever.

Our boys are disengaged and falling behind.

Our classrooms are disrupted and, in some cases, dangerous.

We don’t have enough teachers but it’s also harder than it used to be to become a teacher.

Parents and teachers are in a day-in, day-out fight against screens.

And all of this is going on while we are pouring more money than ever before into our schooling system.

Achievement and curriculum

Issues around academic performance and curriculum shot into the spotlight in the last fortnight with the release of the 2025 results for the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, or “PISA”.

PISA is a test of 15-year-olds done every three years and is probably the most respected international benchmark that shows how Australian students are tracking both over time, and how they are tracking against peers  in other countries.

And Australia’s results in 2025 for maths and reading were the worst ever.

The worst ever.

We saw a 7-point drop in scores for reading, from a score of 498 just three years ago to a score of 491 today.

And we saw a 9-point drop in mathematics. From 487 to 478.

Only 55 per cent of Australian students reached the national proficient standard in reading, 49 per cent in mathematics and 60 per cent in science.

It is grim reading for what has happened in our school education system in the last three years.  

When Education Minister Jason Clare was asked about the scores in question time on Wednesday and Thursday last week, his response was to praise Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Let’s take a step back and reflect on that.

The Australian Minister for Education, asked about the results of Australian School Students, chose instead to speak about two other countries.

That choice tells you everything you need to know about the overall trajectory.

If there were good things to say he would have said them. But the truth is grim.

But the long-term picture is even worse.

In the year 2000, the first year for which we have scores – before the national curriculum and before David Gonski’s needs-based funding – our reading score in PISA was 528. That is a 37-point decline.

In 2003 in maths – again, the first year for which we have scores, and also before the national curriculum and the Gonski reforms – our raw score was 524. That is a decline of 46 points.

Now sometimes these points-systems can be a little bit abstract.

So let me read from OECD’s own publication, which explains the relationship between points and time spent in schooling.

This is what the paper that sets out the PISA results said:

Finally, [this paper] reports estimates suggesting that students around age 15 typically gain about 20 score points over one year of schooling, i.e. this number of points could be considered to be equivalent to one school year of learning.

There are variations between countries, and you need to have a degree of caution about applying it mechanistically.

But as a broad indicator, what this means is that in the last 3 years, our students have fallen behind by around 4 months in reading and 6 months in maths.

And in the last quarter of a century, we have gone backwards by around two years.

Two years.

PISA v NAPLAN

What happens when you compare PISA with the NAPLAN data?

Well there’s a really important point that emerges.

In 2008, the first year of testing, the mean score for year 9 reading was 582.2 points. This year it is 573.9 points.

In 2008, the mean score for year 9 reading was 578 points. This year it was 562.2 points.

Around one third of Australian students now fall into the ‘developing’ or ‘needs additional support’ categories in NAPLAN testing.

Now you have to apply some caution with NAPLAN because there is a break in the dataset between 2022 and 2023, after Labor came to office. So we can’t mechanistically do a subtraction of post-2022 scores from the earlier ones.

What does NAPLAN testing show us if you account for that break?

Well, between 2008 and 2022, the NAPLAN data for year 9 maths and reading – the results that are most directly comparable to what is measured by PISA – are relatively flat.

So too the data from 2023 onwards.

In fact, ACARA explicitly says that the NAPLAN results from 2008 to 2022 were effectively unchanged, and the changes we have seen since 2023 as, quote, “negligible”.

So PISA says we’re backsliding.

And NAPLAN says we’re just not improving.

Neither is a good story.

But the stories are different – and that’s important.

Because NAPLAN and PISA measure different things.

NAPLAN is expressly curriculum linked. It is designed to measure the literacy and numeracy that our children learn through the Australian curriculum.

PISA is explicitly not curriculum linked.

It tests whether students can take what they have learned and apply it in unfamiliar, often real-world situations.

So what? What does that mean?

What conclusion can we draw when, on the one hand, testing shows that student performance against the national curriculum is relatively flat, but that testing of those very same students against other nations and in real world terms shows you that they are massively backsliding?

What does it tell you if the curriculum says you’re going fine, and the real-world testing says you’re going backwards.

It tells you that the curriculum is part of the problem.

PISA shows us that, year on year, our 15-year olds are slowly sliding backwards in their ability to apply maths and reading in real-world situations.

And NAPLAN shows us that our performance against the curriculum is flat.

This isn’t me.

It’s just the evidence.

The evidence is grim.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Behaviour and discipline

The PISA results show that Australian students are more likely to experience bullying or cyber-bullying than their OECD peers.

They experience much higher rates of noise and disorder in the classrooms.

Under the heading ‘truancy’, the country report for Australia says this:

In 2025, around 44% of students in Australia reported having skipped at least one day of school in the two weeks prior to the test (OECD average: 22%)

That is double the OECD average.

In science, 21% of students say their classes are so disrupted that the cannot work in some or all of their classes.

That is extraordinary.

How are we going to grow the engineers that will build the Australia of the future if we can’t effectively teach science?

How will we develop the innovations and breakthroughs that solve problems, save lives and drive productivity if our kids don’t learn science?

We owe it to our kids to do better.

Boys’ education

Let me turn then to another of the serious issues that is confronting our education system.

Because it is time for us, at a national level, to have a discussion about boys’ education.

It is a point I have been articulating ever since I was appointed Shadow Minister for education.

This is not a zero-sum game.

In the last thirty years we have made extraordinary strides in the education of women and girls.

In 1996, similar proportions of men and women had degrees, with slightly more men than women – around 10%.

By 2025, 37% of women between the ages of 15 and 74 had a degree at bachelor’s level or higher, compared with 30% of men.

And if you drill down into the 25-34 age bracket it is 53.3% of women who have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 40% of men.

It is fair to say now that, based on our national data, not only are Australians better educated in general than they were 30 years ago, but that women are better educated than men.

The successes we have had in women’s education are massive.

It is a public policy achievement of which Australians should justly be proud.

I want both boys and girls to succeed in their education – and can I say that I have a personal stake in this as I have both a son and a daughter in the education system right now!

But as I said, it is not a zero-sum game – and the data we are seeing on boys’ education is clear and it is compelling.

The data today shows that while girls are still behind in numeracy, there are warning signs for boys in all the literacy domains, in engagement, and in retention—and that these gaps flow through to higher learning.

Boys do better on numeracy, but continue to trail girls across the board on all the NAPLAN literacy assessments—reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation—and this trend also shows up in PISA.

In PISA 2025, boys were ahead of girls by 17 points in mathematics, but behind by 32 points in reading.

In NAPLAN 2026, Year 9 girls’ mean writing score was 591 for girls compared with 553 for boys, a gap of 38 points; in numeracy it was 582 for boys and 566 for girls.

This means that, as with PISA, boys are ahead by about 16 points in maths but behind by 38 points in writing. That means that, in writing, our year 9 boys are somewhere between one and two years behind the girls.

Importantly, the NAPLAN data tends to show that the gap in numeracy is relatively stable as children progress from year 3 to year 9, but that in the literacy domains it grows. 

In other words, in literacy, our boys start behind but then they fall further behind.

And there is evidence that NAPLAN statistics may in fact be underestimating the gender gap.

A report last year on boys education called Echoes of Disparity by NSW Catholic schools pointed out that:

Boys are 94% more likely than girls to be exempted from participating in NAPLAN, and 76% more likely to be withdrawn. Assessment rates are lower for boys than for girls in all twenty NAPLAN assessments, including the Numeracy tests. Overall, boys are 27% more likely than girls to be non-assessed.

If these non-assessed students are likely to score lower than average, which is a reasonable assumption, then the higher non-assessment rate for boys is artificially narrowing the gender gap in available statistics

There is no real question that this flows through to our higher education sector.

In NSW, there is now an 11-point gap between boys and girls going on to higher education in NSW.

And there’s a disturbing pattern when you look at the longitudinal data at a national level.

In 2015, 168,000 young men enrolled in higher education.

By 2024, the most recent year for which we have data, that number had fallen to 158,000.

The numbers of young men progressing from school to higher education fell by 10,000 – and Australia’s population increased by approximately 3.4 million over the same period.

There is a gap in university completions that is pronounced and growing.

According to ABS data about undergraduate domestic students, in 2020 there were 28,000 more young women than men who completed their degree.

By 2024—again, the most recent year for which we have data—that gap had expanded to 35,343.

In other words, in 4 years the gap in female to male undergraduate completions blew out by a massive 26.2%.

And if you want to talk proportions rather than raw numbers, the same trend emerges.

Compared with their female counterparts, male completion ratios dropped significantly over those 4 years.

What this is showing us is not only that men are less likely to commence higher education than they were 10 years ago, they’re also more likely to drop out, and the rate at which they drop out relative to women is increasing.

The downward trend around boys’ educational performance shows up in other markers, too.

School retention rates now sit at 77.6% for boys, compared with 85.3% for girls—a gap of 8 percentage points. That’s a big difference. That is thousands of young lives.

And as the Echoes of Disparity report pointed out last year, referring to the 2022 PISA results, boys are significantly more likely than girls to be disengaged from school, get lower marks and repeat grades.

In their words, the over-representation of boys among the most academically vulnerable school students is, quote, “driving negative outcomes for young men in higher educational attainment, employment participation, and other stages of life”.

This is why I wrote to Jason Clare last year and asked him to set up an inquiry into Boys’ education and to his credit he did – it is called the inquiry into “educational attainment”.

And I hope that inquiry gives us the clear answers we are looking for.

Because it is clear to me that no serious agenda for student success can overlook the performance of our boys through the education system.

What explains the trend

Now, looking at these trends, what becomes apparent very quickly is that most of the explanations that are peddled don’t withstand scrutiny.

For the past 15 years or more, we have been told a story that educational success and attainment are a function of two things: school funding and socio-economic status.

Those claims, no longer stack up – if indeed they ever did.

School funding has increased consistently.

Between 2014 and 2022, total funding paid by the Commonwealth to support Australian schools rose every single year and increased by 86 percent over the period, with the government school component of that funding more than doubling.

In calendar year 2026, recurrent funding is estimated to be $33.3 billion, and the budget forward estimates show year-on-year increases in funding to schools out to 2029-30.

In other words, school funding paid by the Commonwealth has increased every single year since 2013 and well above inflation, but our performance is worse than ever.

The other claim that is made is that the variation in results is accounted for by socio-economic status.

The evidence just doesn’t bear that out.

As the OECD explicitly stated in its 2025 PISA results, socio-economic status accounted for just 9% of the variation in science performance in PISA 2025 in Australia.

And, in particular, the sharpest decline in PISA results between 2022 and 2025 came from the most socio-economically advantaged students.

The 10-year trend in PISA results is similar. Australia’s advantaged students declined in science while disadvantaged students remained stable.

This year’s PISA country report for Australia shows that, quote:

…a one-unit increase in the curiosity index is associated with a difference of 26 score points in science performance…

… students who perceive greater value in school and disagree that it is a waste of time tend to achieve higher scores in science (by 44 score points)…

And the data also shows that students who believe that intelligence can be cultivated through work, effort and feedback—in other words, those who have a growth mindset—score 47 points higher against an OECD average of 28 points, after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile.

In other words, non-SES factors are hugely important predictors of academic performance.

And there is a raft of other data going back years, showing the same trend.

The Australian Education Research Organisation, AERO, in their research summary looking at NAPLAN data between 2013 and 2019 made clear that between years 7 and 9, between 60 and 70 per cent of numeracy variance and 63 to 66% of literacy variance occurs between students within schools, rather than between schools.

In other words, most achievement variation isn’t simply attributable to which school or social context a student is in.

In 2017, the Melbourne Institute published a paper analysing the “Trends in Mathematics and Science Study” or TIMSS. They showed that approaching 10% of the variation in high school student achievement is explained by teacher effects in Australia.

In other words, a good teacher is at least as important, if not more important, than the background you come from.

In 2014, the NSW Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation published research showing that Prior NAPLAN achievement was the strongest predictor of later achievement. Once it was accounted for, the additional effects of parental socio-educational background and other individual contextual variables were described as “relatively small”.

All of this is just common sense.

We all instinctively recognise that a child from a poor background will do well if they have a good teacher, an orderly classroom and a curriculum that is fit for purpose.

We also know that well-off children will struggle to succeed if their classroom is disrupted, the teaching methods are ineffective, and the curriculum is vague or poorly sequenced.

The evidence is clear that school funding makes a difference up to a point but will not lead to the turnaround in results that Australia needs to see.

It is time to move beyond arguments about school funding and socioeconomic status in national schools policy.

The Coalition’s policy to restore excellence in Australian schools

So the data is clear.

• Our school educational performance is at its lowest level ever, even though funding is at record levels.
• The curriculum is part of the problem.
• Our discipline and classroom behaviour standards are holding learners back and creating risks to teacher safety and wellbeing.
• Our boys are falling behind and are disengaged.
• And we’re fighting a battle against screens – and I’ll come back to that.

But there is a way forward.

The situation calls for a comprehensive national schools’ education policy.

A policy grounded in evidence, with the best interests of children at its heart, underpinned by clear and mutually supporting lines of effort.

That is why today I announce the Coalition’s policy to restore excellence in Australian schools.

Our policy is a policy that is unashamedly framed around excellence.

We want restoring excellence in school education to be the centrepiece of our discussions about school education policy all the way through to the next election—and beyond if we win government.

The Coalition’s policy to restore excellence in Australian schools will be based on five key pillars.

Let me outline our conceptual framework.

The first pillar centres on curriculum, standards and assessment.

This pillar focuses on improving the academic performance of school students and, importantly, returning time to principals and teachers. It also means supporting national identity and social cohesion by restoring pride in Australia, its history and its place in the world.

The second pillar of our policy to restore excellence to Australian schools is teacher workforce and school leadership.

This means a focus on having more teachers, with deeper subject-matter knowledge, teaching within their area of expertise.

The third pillar of our policy on schooling excellence is about discipline and the school environment. This means that ensuring that classrooms are less disrupted, and that schools are safe for students and staff. 

The fourth pillar is about effective teaching methods and education architecture. This is about embedding explicit instruction, cutting screen time, reducing the education bureaucracy, and ensuring that both boys and girls are set up to succeed.

The fifth pillar is about school choice and the costs of education. This means supporting parents to choose the schools that are right for them and recognising cost and funding pressures as appropriate. 

These five pillars will guide the Coalition’s school education policy through to the next election.

We will have more to say.

We will have more to say because there is a lot to do.

The ‘downpayments’ on our policy platform

However, as an downpayment on our policy platform, I want give an initial set of commitments about how the Coalition plans to restore excellence in schooling.

First, we will do root and branch reform of the national curriculum.

The evidence is clear that the curriculum is part of the problem.

I have been the Shadow Minister for education for almost a year now.

In that time, I’ve spoken to teachers, to principals, to parents and to students. I’ve visited Catholic, Independent and Government schools.

I’ve seen single-sex and co-ed schools.

Primary, secondary, combined and special schools.

Schools in the cities.

And schools in remote areas where the conditions are extremely hard.

Majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools.

I am yet to encounter a single person who sings the praises of our curriculum.

Almost to a person, I am told it has the unique distinction of being both vague and overcrowded.

That the content is not clearly sequenced.

That it doesn’t build the foundational knowledge, layer upon layer, in a carefully planned way.

That you can’t pick it up and teach the teaching points.

That in fact you can’t pick it up at all.

It’s in an online form and is not even downloadable in a single document. If you print it out, depending on the font size, you’ll get some 3,000 pages but you won’t get a teaching plan.

A year ago, in response to the declining scores in Maths, Jason Clare was saying our curriculum needed keyhole surgery, and that was the reason for the K-2 review of the maths curriculum.

And then this year, in response to PISA, that keyhole surgery is now a review of K-6 maths.

Well we don’t need keyhole surgery.

We need open heart surgery.

And more importantly, our academic performance shows that we can’t afford to wait until 2032 to have that much broader look.

The whole curriculum must be reduced to make it shorter, clearer and more usable.

We owe our children better.

I’d like to see a curriculum that is precise in what is taught.

That is shorter.

That aligns with the evidence.

And most importantly of all, gives time back to teachers and principals.

Wholesale reform must aim for a shorter national curriculum that returns time to teachers and principals.

This frees up teachers to focus on effective teaching. It also means reducing the burden that we ask the states and territories to take on.

This starts with removing the cross-curricular priorities.

All the evidence points to the need for clear, sequentially structured teaching points that build layers of knowledge.

How is that consistent with the cross-curricular priorities, which almost by definition cannot be sequenced in the same way.

The evidence points to the benefits of subject matter expertise among teachers. If you have cross-curricular priorities, then almost by definition they’re not being taught by people with subject matter expertise.

I think it does the subjects a disservice and it does our teachers a disservice. The three cross-curricular priorities are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Culture, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and sustainability.

Well I’m the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians and I want to see our children learn about our Indigenous heritage, just like they learn about our British foundation and multicultural character.

I’m the co-chair of the both the Parliamentary Friends of India and the Parliamentary Friends of China. I understand the importance of Australia’s engagement with Asia.

And I have been on the record about the need for a sensible and balanced approach to sustainability.

All three topics are important, each in their own way.

But that doesn’t mean they should be delivered thematically to our children as cross-curricular priorities.

Teach them as discrete, carefully planned topics that fit properly within geography or history or science classes.

Give them the respect as subjects that they deserve. 

And the same goes for the teachers who are teaching them.

If you’re teaching a maths or science or history class – I’d like you not to have to worry about incorporating those additional bits.

So when we talk about curriculum reform, let’s be very clear in what we’re saying.

It’s about giving time back to teachers and principals.

Being clearer in what the expectations are at every level.

Building them sensibly over time.

Reducing the dross and the distraction.

And it’s something I don’t think can afford to wait.

Let me say something else about curriculum.

Within the context of our shorter, more precise national curriculum, I would like Australian students to specifically learn about Western values and culture.

That includes basics like democracy, the rule of law, a fair go, the development by Australians of our system of constitutional monarchy and federation and the incredibly stable system of government that has been the result.

All of these have been part of Liberal education policies for the last 30 years and which Labor has only now belatedly started to accept.

But I would also like to see Australian students taught and exposed to the foundations of Western culture.

The classical works of literature and art and music and philosophy that underpin and enrich the ideas that have shaped our country.

In my very first speech as Shadow Education Minister, I said this:

The basics of a strong education—reading, writing, maths, science and a proper understanding of our history—are non-negotiable.

I am on the record repeatedly saying that I want Australian students to learn more about all three great strands of our history – our Indigenous heritage, our British foundation and our multicultural character.

Each of them is important and we should be taking pride in all three.

But a root and branch of reform of our curriculum should also take these things into account and should build a sense of pride in our country.

Let every school have a flag and let every student take pride in it, its history and the values for which is stands.

On teaching our children about national pride there is much to do.

The second policy commitment which I make today is about streamlining the path to become a teacher. This is a teacher workforce measure.

The Coalition will support a return to one-year teacher accreditation, making it much easier for mid-career professionals to become teachers by reducing the cost and time disincentive.

Until the early 2010s, teachers in Australia were generally accredited on the basis of one-year teacher training courses. Since that time, teaching in Australia has generally shifted to accreditation to a system of two-year courses, generally at the Masters level.

The two-year requirement has not led to an improvement in performance.

It has, however, created significant barriers to those seeking to join the profession – both initially and for professionals seeking a mid-career change.

In 2023, the NSW Productivity Commission released data showing that the shift to the longer qualification led to 9,000 teachers not entering the profession between 2015 and 2022.

This was due to the additional time and expense associated with longer initial teacher education.

In NSW alone, the two-year requirement imposed $3 billion in net costs on the community.

In terms of its impact on teachers specifically, it has collectively left them $1 billion worse off over that 2015 to 2022 period.

The numbers would be even higher today.

The Commission estimated that teacher shortages and out-of-field teaching as a result of the lost teachers had cost NSW school students $2.1 billion in lifetime earnings.

That is an extraordinary cost for no gain.

And let me say this: I sat on the board of Teach for Australia.

I have seen the difference that motivated mid-career professionals bring when they make the jump into teaching. They are amazing.

But there is room for creative options too.

We will also explore new pathways.

The other day I spoke to a number of journalists about discipline in schools in the wake of PISA, and about options.

One of the options which I floated – on which I’d like the community’s feedback – is the option of supporting our ADF veterans into the teaching profession as part of their post-service career.

I have never put on the uniform, but I have enormous respect for those who have.

And when I think about the need for better classroom behaviour and more discipline in our classrooms, about the need for more support for Australian values, it seems to make sense.

The Australian Defence Force is one of the very few organisations in our country which has no problem with discipline.

Almost every junior non-commissioned officer teaches other personnel as a core part of their service.

And when it comes to encouraging them into classrooms, it means our children get to see and learn from people who have lived the service ethos. They are role models for behaviours that keep our community strong.

And for the veterans themselves, we can do more for them – and teaching is a great option for post-service career pathways.

So I’d like community feedback on proposals like that.

The third policy commitment that I announce today is a commitment to set behaviour expectations in schools and back principals and teachers to enforce them.

The Centre for Independent Studies’ Classrooms in Crisis report, released earlier this month, showed that roughly nine minutes in a typical 30-minute lesson were lost to disruption.

Forty per cent of teachers reported interruptions in most or all lessons, and 10 per cent said behaviour had greatly affected their health and wellbeing in the preceding week.

And I’ve already spoken about the PISA results.

But other data show that student behaviour has become a safety and wellbeing issue for teachers.

In the ACT, for example, WorkSafe has issues prohibition and improvement notices to schools based on student violence and assaults.

Work from Monash University and Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) shows that female teachers are frequently exposed to completely unacceptable student behaviour based solely on their gender.

Behaviour is a learning issue.

Behaviour is a safety and wellbeing issue.

But behaviour is not the responsibility of teachers alone.

Education is a contract between teachers, parents, schools and students.

The Coalition will support every school in Australia to develop a clear statement of behavioural expectations for students, and will back in teachers and principals to enforce those standards.

These standards should be designed by school communities to suit that community, and to reinforce the basics of effective teaching, such setting baseline expectations, predictable routines and structured lessons that support effective learning.

This is in the interests of teachers, schools and parents – but most of all it is in the interests of students who otherwise stand to lose out due to disrupted classrooms.

The fourth policy commitment that I make today is about drastically reducing screen time and AI use in schools

I’m reminded of the debate we had eight years about mobile phones in schools.

I remember when Dan Tehan first called for a mobile phone ban in schools in 2018 calling it a no-brainer, a way to reduce distractions, improve learning and address bullying.

He was mocked at the time.

State education ministers resisted the proposal – just like they resisted Christopher Pyne’s push to mandate phonics some years earlier. 

The Australian Education Union said that smartphones should not be unfairly targeted and it was, quote, “much more productive to actually teach students how to use them”.

The head of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, said it was a, quote, “complete red herring” that it was, quote, “similar to banning cars to stop people from speeding”.

Dan was opposed by ACT Labor Education Minister Yvette Berry, who argued that instead of removing them from schools we should instead teach students “how to live alongside devices appropriately”.

Dan was also opposed by Northern Territory Labor Education Minister Selena Uibo, who said an outright ban “fails to take into account the many ways in which [mobile phones] can enhance learning”.

He was opposed by Queensland Labor Education Minister Grace Grace, who did not want a ban to be uniform.

Dan was right of course.

The ban on mobile phones has now been a celebrated part of our national education policy across all jurisdictions for a year.

And there is a lesson in that.

So let me come back to screens.

I have been strong on this issue since my very first day in the portfolio.

Within 24 hours of being appointed as Shadow Minister for Education, in my very first interview, I spoke about the neuro and cognitive science about learning and the damaging impacts of screens.

I called for screen time in schools to be reduced across the board.

I received some pushback for that at the time. About the digital divide.

Well, that may be a real thing but as Shadow Minister for Education I’m more concerned about the learning divide.

Now I’m not an ideologue about this. I’m a pragmatist.

I recognise that there are cases where screens can enhance learning – in remote learning, for instance, or where there’s a student with disability and the screen helps to close the gap.

But I do not accept that screens should be the default – particularly in primary schools.

On Thursday this week I spoke with neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, who has been incredibly strong on how screen time hurts kids’ cognitive development.

And earlier in the week, my office was speaking with Dr Mark Williams OAM, who is an honorary professor of cognitive neuroscience and Macquarie University, and Dany Elachi of the Heads Up Alliance.

The evidence about the adverse impact of screens is broad, and it is compelling. It has been linked to:

• changes to the brain itself in terms of white matter and cortical structure;
• the “screen inferiority effect” on reading comprehension
• negative outcomes across all cognitive domains;
• lower working memory performance (regardless of external distraction); and
• poor classroom behaviour.

And as we saw reported in the media earlier in the week, there is at least some work being done on potential links to ADHD.

Too many students spend their school day in front of a screen, and then come home and spend time in front of a screen again.

Our schools policy should aim to carve out spaces where children are free to be children – with flow-on benefits not just for education, but for families.

Restricting screen use is an important part of restoring excellence to our schooling system.

It is not the whole answer—but must be a key part of the discussion.

New South Wales and Victoria have recently moved to restrict individual screen time in classrooms.

I say: that’s a good start.

Now lets see similar changes should be rolled out across the board.

Let us have a national standard on screen use in schools.  

And don’t let the current NSW standard – or indeed the Victorian one -become an anchor as the evidence develops.

Under the Coalition’s approach, screen use by school children nationally would be intentional, and should be justified on the basis of need – especially for primary school children.

The intent of this policy is to protect children’s attention-span, sustained reading, handwriting, discussion and teacher-led instruction.

It would also remove routine device use where there is no clear learning purpose.

Let me explain.

Under our approach, the starting point must be that, if screens are used, their use must be specifically justified.

For example, when it comes to basics like reading, writing and maths, what is the learning outcome that requires a primary school student specifically to use a screen?

And that approach applies across the board.

Take year 9 maths, for instance. The mathematical concepts taught in year 9 haven’t changed in the last 25 years.

In the year 2000, year 9 kids did not have individual devices.

But they grasped those concepts better than children do today, according to the PISA data.

The point is clear.

If we are going to use screens, there should be a specific outcome in mind.

That is what I mean about intentional use, about screens not being the default—and about that being the standard that applies nationally.

The same goes for AI use by students.

What is the use case?

There is mounting evidence that AI use by students has come to be associated with adverse outcomes in terms of long-term learning and critical thinking.

While there may be cases where AI use might be justified it should not, as a rule, be incorporated into classroom work.

The fifth policy commitment that I give today is about lifting boys’ education while keep strong outcomes for girls.

I have already spoken at length about the issue.

About the compelling evidence.

About how girls are behind in numeracy, but in literacy, engagement and outcomes, our boys aren’t doing so well.

There is an inquiry going on right now in the House of Representatives, as I mentioned earlier. It is yet to report.

And this is an important discussion to have in the community, in a sober, serious way and based on the evidence.

So I will have more to say in this space in due course.

But let me make this clear: the Coalition will make addressing these differences in educational outcomes a priority.

We will lift outcomes for our boys and maintain or improve outcomes for girls, so that both are set up to succeed.

The sixth and final commitment I make today is the Coalition’s School Funding Guarantee.

The Federal Coalition will honour the levels of school funding in existing bilateral agreements with states and territories.

These funding levels have been set in intergovernmental agreements that in most cases extend to 2034.

This is the Coalition’s School Funding Guarantee.

The agreements are in place.

Our guarantee means there is funding certainty.

And it allows us now attention to shift our attention to quality. 

Instead of how many dollars we are pushing out the door, it’s time for us to have a different discussion – about quality of teaching, classroom conditions and achievement.

The Coalition’s Schools Funding Guarantee will also assist in neutralising, in advance, the inevitable Labor scare campaigns around school funding.

Now those who pay attention to these things will be asking: but what about Victoria?

That is because, contrary to statements by the Prime Minister and unlike every other jurisdiction, there is no bilateral intergovernmental agreement currently in place between the Commonwealth and Victoria that increases school funding.

What we have right now is a stopgap agreement which expires in 3 months, and which does not increase school funding.

This is expected to be addressed in an announcement by Federal and State Labor in the lead-up to the Victorian election.

The reason why Victoria delayed settling an agreement for increased school funding is for the Federal and Victorian Labor governments  to explain.

However, pending the announcement of the bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and Victoria, the Coalition at the Federal level will treat Victoria on the same basis as the other states in terms of its school funding commitments.

We won’t leave them behind.

They are also covered by the guarantee.

We as the Coalition will always take a strong line to ensure that spending on schools is effective and goes where it is needed.

But the guarantee gives certainty.

And let me say one additional point – about choice in education.

Every parent makes choices about their child’s education.

My job isn’t to tell parents what’s best for their children. My job is to ensure that whatever choice they make, it’s a good one.

Labor is only for public schools, but we are for all schools.

We need to stop the class war politics and recognise that school funding is about funding for students, wherever they learn.

So let’s be clear.

The funding wars are over.

We’ve moved beyond that.

The evidence is clear.

It’s time to focus on quality.

It’s time to restore excellence to Australian schools.

Thank you very much.