Teachers, not technicians
Teachers are among society’s most important professionals. They exercise judgement every day – deciding how best to explain complex ideas, respond to individual students and manage the unique dynamics of a classroom. But according to Professor Emeritus Terry Lovat, that professional expertise is increasingly being replaced by centralised mandates and compliance.
Silence is compliance
If government genuinely wants to support teachers, it should remove activist content from the curriculum to restore subject integrity, reduce bureaucracy, wind back the proliferation of individual learning plans, strengthen classroom discipline, and free teachers to focus on teaching core knowledge and skills.
Old men planting trees
Across Australia, teachers are working at the front line of profound social, cultural, and educational change. They are asked not only to teach literacy, numeracy, science, and history, but to respond to rising student anxiety, navigate contested social debates, manage increasing behavioural and emotional complexity, and foster cohesion in classrooms that reflect extraordinary diversity of background and experience.
Multi-ethnic, not multi-cultural
Federal and state education ministers have mandated a major review of Australia’s National Curriculum, to ensure school students are explicitly taught traditional Australian values of democracy, the rule of law, freedom, fairness and a ‘fair go’. The move has drawn support from the opposition and from organisations long critical of the curriculum’s focus on social division.
Celebrating the foundations of our nation
In recent years, respect for and celebration of Australia Day has been under assault. We are told to see our nation’s birth only through the lens of grievance and wrongdoing (as though no other civilisation has ever been founded amid hardship, conflict, or moral complexity).
Learning to Love our Country
I’m delighted to let you know of an exciting new project that the IPA Schools Program will be developing in 2026. ‘This Land’ is a collaborative project of the IPA and Colin Lillie, a musician and songwriter.
