Proposed Reforms & Future Directions
Understanding the problem of student disengagement is only part of the work. This collection brings together the proposals, frameworks and emerging practices that are attempting to reshape secondary schooling in response to the evidence.
From high-level arguments about the purpose of education reform through to practical models that schools and systems are trialling now. Technology is considered not as an end in itself but as one lever among several for personalising learning and building student agency.
Transforming Education: The introduction of laptops to the classroom
- David Loader
- 2015
A foundational reflection by IER Chairman David Loader OAM. Loader looks back on the 1990 introduction of Australia's first 1:1 school laptop program at Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne, and the change management lessons that emerged from it.
Re-imagining Schooling
- David Loader
- 2006
A foundational paper by IER Chairman David Loader OAM. Loader argues that Australian schooling produces unacceptably unequal outcomes and that the standard responses, better buildings, stronger leadership, tighter management, miss the deeper structural problem. The paper makes the case for a community-focused, student-focused and society-focused redesign of schooling.
Educational Computing: Resourcing the Future
- David Loader & Liddy Neville
- 1991
A foundational paper by IER Chairman David Loader OAM, co-authored with Liddy Nevile. Written in the early years of the MLC laptop program, it sets out the intellectual case for personal computing as a vehicle for a constructivist pedagogy, not simply a new piece of classroom equipment.
The Children We Leave Behind: How School Could Be Done Differently
- Geoff Masters
- 2026
Ask a teacher why some students disengage in the middle years and you will hear many answers: family circumstances, social media, a lack of motivation, the challenges of adolescence. What you will hear less often is this: the school system itself is built in a way that makes disengagement almost inevitable for a large proportion of students. That is the central argument of Geoff Masters' important book.
Autonomy and Learning: From School Autonomy to Student Autonomy
- Brian J. Caldwell & Jim M. Spinks
- 2026
What began as a management question — should schools have more control over their own resources? — has quietly become one of the most important questions in education: should students have more control over their own learning? This lead article in the Australian Educational Leader by Professor Emeritus Brian Caldwell and former principal Jim Spinks traces that journey, drawing on nearly four decades of research, policy and practice to arrive at a destination that is urgent, ambitious and directly relevant to the engagement crisis in Australian schools.
Evolution of Equity and Excellence: A New Ambition for Australian Secondary Education
- Australian Secondary Principals Association (ASPA)
- 2025
In March 2025, 165 principals, policymakers, academics, students, parents and union representatives gathered at Parliament House in Canberra for the ASPA National Summit — one of the most significant national conversations about secondary education reform in recent years. This is the report of what they said.
Where’s the Trust? Why we need to rethink this screens policy now.
- Thembi Mason, Jacqueline Manison, David Loader, Jack Allen and Angela Fitzgerald
- 2025
Starting in 2027, Victorian public primary schools will limit digital device use in classrooms to 90 minutes per day for students in Years 3 to 6, with minimal screen time for those in Prep to Year 2. The reform, introduced by the Victorian Government, aims to reduce digital distractions, enhance classroom focus, and relieve families of the financial burden of providing personal devices for their children.
Learners Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for All Students. (BOOK)
- Zhao, Y.
- 2022
Decades of education reform have tinkered with curriculum, assessment and teaching methods — and largely failed to move the dial. In Learners Without...
How to Build an Adaptive Education System: Evolving Culture and Building Adaptive Capacity in Schools.
- Brown, A. & Runge, D.
- 2023
The uncomfortable truth at the centre of this book is that student disengagement is not a student problem — it is a system problem. When young people...