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Australian public school teachers are spending more than $175 million of their own money each year on basic classroom supplies, exposing the personal impact of chronic underfunding of public schools, according to new data from the Australian Education Union.

On a typical school day in Australia last year, about 11 per cent of students were absent. In 2014, the figure was seven per cent.

Learning to read is a complex process. It requires children to master and integrate multiple skills, from mapping abstract symbols to the right speech sounds to understanding what all the words mean.

The Australian Education Union has welcomed new research from Monash University that exposes the extreme and often invisible emotional demands placed on Australia’s public school principals, and is calling for urgent government action to address the escalating risks to their health, safety and wellbeing.

Principals’ jobs have always been stressful, involving a constant juggle to meet the needs of students, staff and the community. But research suggests their roles are becoming more difficult and increasingly unsustainable.

Late last year the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre told us that the number of children experiencing poverty in Western Australia had doubled over the past decade.

Private schools in WA have outspent public schools on capital works by $3.2 billion over the past decade, including $515 million in 2023 alone, exposing a widening infrastructure divide driven by the absence of ongoing Commonwealth capital funding for public schools since 2017.

Education leaders from across Australia have written an open letter to News Corp Australia, calling on them to immediately cease the publication of misleading school league tables.

Inequality is one of the most urgent challenges facing Australian schools. For decades, governments have invested billions of dollars in schools with the promise every child should have the opportunity to succeed.

Australian teachers are more likely to be using artificial intelligence than their counterparts around the world, according to a new international survey.

The 2025 State of Our Schools survey was conducted throughout August and September. A total of 561 surveys were completed by 34 principals, 495 teachers and 32 support staff across Western Australia.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) has released the Investing in Australia’s Future (2025) report, alongside new WA specific findings from the AEU State of Our Schools survey, revealing increasing student complexity, escalating workloads and critical shortages of counsellors and wellbeing staff across WA public schools.

In October this year, the federal government released its rapid review into school bullying.

The Australian government has released regulatory guidance on the social media minimum age law, which comes into effect on 10 December. The law will restrict individuals under 16 from holding accounts on many social media platforms.

The federal government’s announcement of a $10 million package to support schools in tackling bullying is an important step forward, but support for teachers must not be overlooked, according to the Australian Education Union.

In 2022, Western Australia and the rest of the nation were still dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on everyone’s lives.

On the second anniversary of the release of the Facing the Facts report, let’s look at what has been achieved in respect to its recommendations, as well as what still needs to be done.

In 2022 the SSTUWA asked Dr Carmen Lawrence if she would be willing to chair an independent review into the state of public education in Western Australia.

The latest National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy results reveal the enormity of the challenges facing Australia’s school system.

Queensland’s public school teachers walked off the job in August in their first statewide strike in 16 years.