🗳️ Voting for the Future… But Who’s Steering Education?

May 4
5 min read

By Mel Evans, Co-Founder, The EduShift Collective

This weekend, Australia headed to the polls for the federal election. But let’s be honest, for many of us, it doesn’t feel like we’re choosing a vision for the future. It feels like damage control. A choice between the lesser of evils. And while all eyes turn to the economy, housing, and climate, it begs the question: what’s happening with education?

In the national conversation, education is often little more than a side note, a few sound bites about test scores or funding promises. However, as educators, we know this moment is about more than politics. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to shape the story of education. And it’s about who’s holding the pen.

So here’s the real question: when it comes to shaping the future of learning in this country, who’s actually in charge, and do they know what they’re doing?

📚 We’re at a Pivotal Moment in Education

Our system is at a tipping point.

The cracks in the industrial model, designed to sort, rank, and control, are no longer subtle. They’re gaping. This model may have served a different society two centuries ago, but it’s failing today's learners, teachers, and communities.

We know this. We see it in:

The rising mental health issues among students and staff
The disengagement and burnout in classrooms
The growing gap between what’s being taught and what’s actually needed in the real world

And yet… the system keeps doubling down on the old levers: more compliance, more top-down control, more datafication of children.

We continue to choose:

Standardisation over personalisation
Efficiency over equity
Quick fixes over long-term transformation

It’s not for lack of knowledge. It’s not for lack of research. It’s because the people with the power to change things… are rarely the ones who understand how learning actually works.

🧠 We Know What Works, The Evidence Is Clear

Around the world, leading organisations and future-focused systems are pointing us toward a better way.

The OECD’s Learning Compass 2030 centres the development of agency, co-agency, and transformative competencies, not just rote content.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report calls for creativity, complex problem-solving, empathy, adaptability, and collaboration, the very capabilities schools often sideline.
Innovative education systems in Finland, Estonia, Canada, and New Zealand are proof that transformation is not only possible, it’s happening.

Even within Australia, schools and educators are lighting fires of change. We're already doing the work from learner profiles to interdisciplinary inquiry, from student-led assessment to team teaching and wellbeing-centred models.

But here’s the thing: most of this innovation is happening in spite of the system, not because of it.

🧑‍⚖️ So… Who’s Driving the Policy?

Let’s take a look at who’s sitting in the driver’s seat: At the federal level, our Education Minister and Shadow Minister both have no direct teaching experience. At the state level in NSW, QLD, and Victoria, the three most populous states, the story is largely the same. These are the people making decisions about what happens in classrooms across the country.

Not one of them has been a teacher. Not one has worked in a school.

We wouldn’t accept a health minister with no background in medicine. We wouldn’t let someone without engineering experience design our infrastructure. But in education? It's par for the course.

And then we wonder why reform feels disconnected, why policy misses the mark, why our profession feels undervalued, unheard, and increasingly under pressure.

🗳️ We’re Talking About Funding, But Missing the Real Conversation

As the federal election unfolded, education made its way into the headlines, but not in the way it should.

The conversation from our political leaders was largely about funding formulas, access to schools, and ideological culture wars. But what’s missing is any serious interrogation of the actual learning experience, the deep work of teaching and learning that shapes our future citizens.

Where was the conversation about:

Our content-heavy curriculum that leaves little room for inquiry, creativity, or relevance?
The persistence of age-based grouping, ignoring what we know about developmental readiness and individual growth?
The lack of support and value given to play-based learning, despite overwhelming evidence of its impact in the early years and beyond?
The ongoing use of standardised testing as the loudest measure of success, when we know it narrows learning and stifles innovation?
The content suffocation and memorisation that continues to dominate Year 12 education, a system that rewards rote learning and exam preparation, rather than developing the skills and dispositions our students actually need to thrive in society. The ATAR score measures a narrow slice of student potential, failing to capture critical skills like collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity.

We’re talking about the system, but not the soul of it.

🤐 Where Are the Teacher Voices?

We often talk about evidence-based policy. But when it comes to education, our "evidence" is too often measured in PISA rankings and NAPLAN scores, not in deep learning, long-term growth, or the wellbeing of communities.

What if we asked the real experts?

The teachers. The school leaders. The educational researchers. The people in classrooms every day who are doing the real work of nurturing, inspiring, and guiding our next generation.

Where are their voices in the corridors of power?

📣 A Call to Action: It’s Time for Educators to Rise

If you're an educator reading this, here's the truth: they’re not coming to save us.

Policy won’t lead this transformation. We will.

So let’s get to work.

Keep transforming... right where you are. Whether it's in your classroom, your leadership, your team meetings or curriculum designs, keep modelling what future-focused education can be.
Keep questioning outdated models. Call out practices that no longer serve learning. Bring curiosity, creativity and critique to every space you’re in.
Keep educating our communities. Talk to parents. Talk to your friends. Talk to industry allies. Show them the why and the how of great learning. Help them see what’s possible beyond grades and tests.
Keep the pressure on. Ask the hard questions of those in power. When politicians come to your school or community event, ask: What do you actually know about education? Who are you listening to? What are you doing to elevate teacher voice?
Keep sharing your voice. Speak up in staff rooms, panels, and public conversations. Post. Write. Present. Advocate. This is not the time to be silent.

We know what good learning looks like. We know what young people need. We know what the future is asking of us.

Let’s make it undeniable, impossible to ignore, and non-negotiable that teachers and learners are at the centre of every decision.

Because if we don’t? The system will keep spinning. The policies will keep coming. And the people who understand learning least will continue to shape its future.