Media and Opinion

The evidence on student disengagement is not confined to research journals. This collection brings together news articles, opinion pieces and practitioner commentary from Australia and around the world that reflect how the public sphere understands the problem. 

These pieces capture the voices of educators, journalists and commentators responding to what they see in schools — and reflect a growing consensus that secondary schooling needs meaningful reform.

Why are so many kids not going to school? Education needs a reset – a practitioners’ view

The third paper in the series uses the post-pandemic attendance crisis as its lens, arguing that rising absenteeism is a symptom of a deeper collapse of trust...

England’s secondary schools are Dickensian. No wonder children are staying away

In this sharply argued column, Guardian commentator Simon Jenkins places the blame for England's school attendance crisis squarely on the nature of secondary...

Education in England needs a ‘re-set’ – a practitioners’ view and a call for action

The first in a series of practitioner opinion pieces, this paper argues that English public education is failing to serve learners in the post-pandemic world...

Does AI confirm the need to re-set Education in the UK? – a practitioners’ view

The second paper in the series takes the emergence of AI as its starting point, arguing that it both exposes and accelerates the inadequacy of the current...