Quality learning: a world class education for every child

The evidence suggests that Australian school students are failing to keep pace and in some cases falling behind the rest of the world in reading, maths and science.

To take Australia into the top five by 2025, we will need to raise our standards of learning and be able to better measure our progress along the way.

More focus on the early years of education

The first few years of school are critical to every child's longer term learning outcomes. Literacy and numeracy support will be provided from Foundation to Year 3 including intensive reading intervention through the early years reading blitz. School readiness assessments when students commence school will help teachers to understand and meet the needs of each student in their first few years at school.

Fully implement the Australian Curriculum

In agreeing to the reforms, governments are committing to implement the Australian Curriculum in full. The National Assessment Program will be expanded to include science, and new standards will be developed so that parents and schools can track progress against national benchmarks and compare with international results.

Prepare students for the jobs of the future

The curriculum will be extended to provide students with significant exposure to studies of Asia, working towards continuous access to a priority Asian language.

Students taking vocational studies will also be better prepared for the jobs of the future as governments, schools and business work together to modernise the national framework for vocational education in schools.