A national approach to resources and AI in schools

12 August 2025 | Catherine de Fontenay

Our school achievement statistics make for grim reading. The latest NAPLAN results show that, despite some improvements in Victoria, outcomes have not meaningfully improved for many years. Today one in three students are not meeting expectations in literacy and numeracy.

These headlines hide deeper inequalities. Around 20% of students in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged schools are below the national reading standards, but only 1% in the most advantaged.

The evidence shows that students who fall behind rarely catch up. If we don’t do something differently, many of the students who have fallen behind are at risk of leaving school without the foundational skills they need to thrive in today’s economy.

Helping these students means meeting them where they are and tailoring lessons around their abilities. But teachers often also have to do this while teaching kids who are meeting or exceeding the benchmarks. The 2022 NAPLAN results show that most schools had students below the minimum standard and students in the maximum band, in the same year level.

Teachers face a difficult task in teaching to such a wide range of abilities and it’s reflected in their workloads. The average teacher spends an estimated six hours a week searching for and creating materials. New teachers or those teaching out-of-field are under particular pressure and can face increased preparation time and workload. This has real consequences for the wellbeing of teachers and the students who depend on them: workload is consistently cited as the top reason for teachers leaving the profession early.

The good news is we have a range of tools to help teach students at different levels. Teaching materials that provide ‘scaffolding’, like worked examples or prompts and explanation, can help a struggling student understand a concept and gradually catch up. Stretch material can challenge advanced students.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has boosted this potential: we can now offer individualised assessments and questions that respond to the needs of each student. NSWEduChat allows students to ask questions (as with generative AI) and its responses stimulate further learning through questions rather than direct answers. AI can also help teachers to quickly adapt material to their local context (for example, changing a question about boat navigation for a student who has never seen the ocean). Compared with previous waves of educational technology, the ease with which AI can be incorporated into the classroom is striking. And using AI in schools will better prepare students to use it in the workplace

The bad news is that my colleagues and I at the Productivity Commission have found that access to such materials and technology varies widely. I see that first hand as a volunteer high school tutor, where the materials range from excellent solution videos to loose pages with vaguely worded questions at the top.

Some states have developed high-quality materials for their public schools and some non-government sectors are doing the same. But access for teachers in other jurisdictions remain patchy. And every jurisdiction and school system needs more comprehensive materials that support evidence-based teaching practices, combined with more training for teachers in using them effectively.

That’s why we’re proposing that the Australian Government establish an online bank of up-to-date and quality-assured materials that are sequentially structured and can be adapted for the needs of teachers and students at every level. Funding for continuing training and professional development is also essential.

Likewise, in AI, there is huge variation in access from one school to another. Some states have developed their own generative AI teaching tools, tailoring and overseeing them to ensure they are safe and pedagogically sound.

Many aren’t as lucky. In other states and school systems, schools are being asked to source off-the-shelf AI tools with limited guidance. We need national collaboration so we can widely share these tools and learnings and use our joint purchasing power to access them sooner.

We have the tools to help students catch up and better support our teachers. Let’s make sure they can get them.