Australia’s most powerful people in education in 2023

Here’s a prediction: 2024 will be the year of education for the Albanese government. And all the ducks are being lined up for that to happen, with efforts under way to lift the dire academic performance of Australian schools and ensure more young people attend university.

At the same time, skill shortages are biting and there is a big question mark over whether universities are delivering on national productivity. After all, we’ve never had a more educated population but productivity is at a standstill. Something has to give and universities are in the firing line.

1. Jason Clare

Federal Education Minister Clare has a full work slate and big ambitions. There are three reviews under way – and if the pieces all fall into place over the next decade or so, there should be significant knock-on effects in the years to come. First up is a review into whether Australia should have a universal childcare system. Second is a review into the funding of schools, which is being done to turn around Australia’s lagging performance and underachievement by poor students. And a third review is looking into the country’s universities, with the aim of doubling the number of domestic students by 2050. There’s a lot riding on these, including Clare’s legacy.

2. Mark Scott

Being vice-chancellor of Sydney University, Australia’s oldest and among its most prestigious, gives Scott access and influence. His previous lives – and he’s had many – are coalescing in this role as he plies his various skills as intellectual, political insider, bureaucrat and powerbroker.

Scott produced one of the many reports that Clare is using to push his agenda for change. It looked at how to reform the way universities prepare teachers and proved both influential and controversial because it slayed a few of education’s sacred cows, including that children learn more if their education is self-directed. Scott’s review says we need actual science and evidence – and that points to explicit instruction and phonics. It’s now up the states and territories to follow through.

3. Jacquie Burrows

Burrows is a humble principal of a small public primary school in country Victoria – not the sort of person usually found on a Financial Review power list. But Burrows is at the forefront of a growing movement in schools around how students are taught. When she became principal of Churchill Primary School in the La Trobe Valley five years ago, she saw only disadvantage, disengagement, behaviour issues and shockingly poor learning outcomes.